Psalm 10

Today's psalm reminds me so much of the book When Bad Things Happen to Good People by Rabbi Harold S. Kushner. I'll be honest that I haven't read the book, but I remember some years ago that a friend recommended it to me when I was struggling with depression and wondering why I had to suffer when there were so many others around me who were doing all the wrong things who didn't suffer.

I don't believe for a minute that I'm a good person. I'm a sinner. I'm a big, fat, grievous sinner who hurts God's heart on a daily basis. I do my best to avoid sin, but sometimes it finds me even if I'm not looking for it. Anyhow, I am far from "good" but I am trying to be good. Actually, my aim is to be perfect as the Father is perfect (Matthew 5:48). That said, I understand why my friend recommended this book. I imagine that the author probably quotes this psalm or perhaps another like it. Look at this passage:

Their ways prosper at all times; Your judgments are on high, out of their sight; as for their foes, they scoff at them. They think in their heart, "We shall not be moved; throughout all generations we shall not meet adversity." (verses 5-6)

The psalmist is talking here about the wicked. He's accusing God of being so far away that the wicked are not able to hear His judgments upon them and his proof is that the wicked are prospering in everything they do. He goes on to talk about how they persecute and prey upon the poor, curse their enemies and the like and that they have confidence that nothing ill will befall them.

How many times have you met people like this?

To be honest, there is a particular presidential candidate at the moment who seems to fit this bill. Despite all his ravings, outrageous comments, and behaviour that would earn most people a ticket to the hospital in a straight jacket -- he seems to continue to gain momentum and support like wildfire.  I confess that I am dumbfounded at times as to how on earth any sane person could possibly think he is a viable candidate for the office of President of the United States. While I'm not alone in my bewilderment over this, the sheer amount of support he seems to be garnering is frightening and makes me very scared for what could happen if he eventually wins in November. There have been times when I've wondered where God is in all of this. A couple of years ago, I would have likely thought God totally absent and deaf due to my own anger at Him, but thankfully, I've moved past that. These days I am able to say, "Lord, I can't see Your plan, but I trust in You."

The psalmist -- after he's vented his spleen about how awful things are and how the wicked prosper and while those who follow God suffer -- seems to come to the same place where I'm at these days:

But You do see! Indeed You note trouble and grief, that You may take it into Your hands; the helpless commit themselves to You; You have been the helper of the orphan. (verse 14).........O Lord, You will hear the desire of the meek; You will strengthen their heart, You will incline Your ear to do justice for the orphan and the oppressed, so that those from earth may strike terror no more. (verses 17-18)

And that's what it really boils down to in the end. Even if we can't see His plan, He really does see. He really is fighting for those who trust in Him. He really does have a plan and He is working that plan despite our inability to see it. When bad things happen to good people, the most fruitful thing we can do is trust in Him.

It's hard, I know. I've been there, done that, got half a dozen or more t-shirts. It's not your first inclination either. It may not be your second or third or two hundred and thirty third and that's okay. It's okay to be angry and tell Him. It's okay to struggle and wonder where He is in the midst of your darkest hour when He appears to be silent and nowhere to be seen. It's okay to be angry that you're struggling and trying to have faith and it seems like no matter what you do, nothing is changing or getting better. All of these things are a-okay.

Here's the challenge though -- stay the course. When you're struggling and you want to give up on God, keep putting one foot in front of the other. That sounds like stupid and ridiculously simple advice, but the image is powerful. It's something my big brother Chez said to me nearly three years ago. We were having a conversation about how hard everything was and how mad I was at God and how I wanted to just give up altogether and leave this life. After much back and forth, I told him I knew suicide wasn't the answer but I just didn't know how to go on anymore. His advice to me was to just keep putting one foot in front of the other.

After that, every time I struggled, those words and the image they evoke would come into my mind. As with most advice, it's easier said than done, but holding onto that image of just staying the course helped me hold onto sanity and reality many times. I continue to keep doing this because it's only by persevering little by little, breathing in and out, moving forward into the next moment, and staying focused on using my energy to put the foot that is behind to the front that I will ever get where I want to go.

This is especially true of faith. So put your trust in Him and when you can't see His plan or how to move forward in faith, continue to do the routine things you already do -- go to Mass or church services, pray, read scripture, engage in fellowship with your faith community -- so that you stay on the path and stay moving toward Him. Your feelings may tell You that He is far away or that You have wandered far from Him but remember, feelings are not always a good barometer of what is reality and what is a lie. You may feel far away, but He is always there and if you're making a conscious effort to at least do something to persevere in faith, He will reward your efforts in His own perfect time.

You may think I'm full of hot air, but I've been there. I've been there for a long time. In some ways, I'm still struggling with my faith and I definitely still struggle with putting my trust firmly in Him. Be encouraged that if you are struggling violently, you are not alone. The wicked may seem to be winning and God may be nowhere you can see Him, but He is with you -- and so am I. I'm praying for you, whoever you may be. If you need a friend to pray with you or encourage you, email me. Just click the link on the sidebar.

Until next time...

Pax Christi!

Psalm 9

Today's psalm is the longest one I've read thus far in this little exercise, but I know it's not the longest to come yet (Psalm 119 may have to be spread over a few days!). Given its length, I decided to take a slightly different tactic for this meditation. As I always do, I read the psalm in my Bible and then left it for a little bit. More specifically, I went and took a shower. I don't know about y'all, but I do some of my best thinking in the shower. Well, wouldn't you know it, I didn't think much about it at all. Instead, my brain went a thousand other directions. As I was coming back to it, I decided that instead of focusing on the entire psalm, I was only going to focus on a single passage from it. In this case, it's a couple of verses.

The Lord is a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble. And those who know Your name put their trust in You, for You, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek You. (verses 9-10)

This particular passage kinda jumped out at me because of the word "oppressed." As I said in one of my previous posts, I've been seeing all the red flags that would normally indicate demonic oppression for well over a year. Gray has said several times in the last three years that he believes that the severity and lengthiness of this episode of depression is due to some kind of attack by the enemy. Any other time I would have agreed with him, but when you're struggling amidst such heavy darkness, it's hard to see light or anything -- much less actually discern spirits.

I think another reason that he probably arrived at that conclusion was because of the drastic change in my spiritual life. It's not that I suddenly stopped going to Mass or doing the base level required stuff, but I lost my ability to connect to it, to find joy in it, and most of all, began to struggle with even wanting to do the basics. I found Mass to be emotionally tortuous at times and an especially agonising challenge most of the rest of the time. For a good portion of the last three years, I participated as a cantor (someone who sings the Psalms and Gospel Acclamation for Mass) and soloist as well as being a regular chorister. I felt like I had an obligation and that people were counting on me, so I stayed and I was honestly miserable. It got to a point where I not only dreaded Sunday mornings, but found that I had no desire to go at all. At some point, I began to feel a kind of revulsion at the idea of attending Mass and even told my big brother Chez that I just didn't want anything to do with anything of faith anymore.

Still, I pushed forward. I went through the motions week after week, month after month. I began to despair that I would never find any peace with my faith or with my relationship to God ever again. At one point, I began to question whether everything I'd always believed was really true or was just something someone made up. That was the lowest point. In that dark valley, apathy set in and the only thing that made me get up and go to Mass on Sundays or pray blessings at meal times and bedtime prayers with my children was my love for my children and my desire to be a good example of them. I wanted them to see me as someone who was struggling, but still continuing to practice her faith, so that some day when life hits them with something that causes them to be angry at God or question their faith, they'll maybe recall my example.

I don't remember what pulled me out of that low point exactly, but I know whatever it was, grace was behind it. A little less than year ago, I began seeing Fr. B for spiritual direction. That was when my faith began to change. It wasn't overnight or even after a few months. It took a good six months before I noticed anything at all. It had been happening gradually, but one Sunday evening when we'd gone to Mass, I realised that I hadn't felt so annoyed and angry. At some point after that, I had several bad weeks in a row with my depression. Given how bad things had become, Fr. B and I stepped up our meetings to every week instead of every 2-3 weeks.

I knew when I walked into the first of those weekly meetings and saw Father's purple stole, holy oil, holy water, a small hand sized Benedictine crucifix, Father's Bible, and a very worn looking small leather book that things were about to get serious. It was about to go down spiritually. That day Father heard my confession, anointed me with the Oil of the Sick for healing, and prayed prayers of deliverance over me. To say that it was intense is an understatement. As he prayed, he blessed me several times with the holy water and touched the crucifix to my head. I started bawling at some point and just kept crying and crying and crying. After he was done, I blew my nose and wiped my eyes. I wasn't sure if I felt different, but I knew that I was actually looking forward to spending some time with Jesus once Father and I parted ways.

We walked over to the church and he gave me the Eucharist and then left me to pray. I spent the next hour and a half praying, crying, praying some more, crying a lot more, and then I did something I hadn't done of my own volition in a long time -- I sang. It was just a simple Latin chant that I know and that was all I sang, but I sang. Don't get me wrong, I didn't feel great paroxysms of joy, but I sang. It was kind of a big deal. When I left, I felt emotionally lighter.

It didn't last though. That's the thing about experiencing spiritual attack or oppression. It's rarely over and vanquished in one go. I think that's because demons are kinda persistent. It's not much consolation at the time, especially if you've been suffering as long as I have, but you have to ignore that it sucks and be more persistent than the demons. So I went back the next week and the next and the next and the next. Before I knew it, Christmas was approaching and both my schedule and Father's got very busy. Then we went out of town for the two weeks surrounding Christmas and New Year's to visit Gray's family.

After Christmas, I set up another meeting with Father, but we didn't resume at our weekly pace. It was back to every 2-ish weeks. Then February hit and my mood took a serious nosedive. We stepped up our meetings again and Father continued to pray both deliverance and other prayers over me, hear my confession, anoint me, and give me the Eucharist. I continued to spend an hour or so after meeting with him to pray and talk to Jesus. Somewhere toward the end of the month, something significant happened. I didn't see it at the time, but Father did. He had told me earlier in that meeting that he really believed that my depression had both psychological and spiritual causes. I halfheartedly agreed with him in the moment, but was still clinging to not wanting to see oppression where it was clearly present.

After that meeting, my mood improved and I found I had more energy emotionally and physically. I found that I was actually enjoying some things, laughing more often, being less grouchy with my children, and that I was looking forward to things in the future in a way I hadn't before. It took another week for me to make the connection between how I was feeling and the spiritual side of my depression.

It's been about three weeks since that happened and although I've had some bad days, my mood has been more or less at the same level. I'm not joyful or what I'd call happy, but this feels different. I told Gray today that I'm starting to feel more like myself. I've been wondering in the last couple of weeks if how I'm feeling means that I'm turning a corner with the depression. I've been very nervous about even thinking that because I've experienced such disappointment in the past when I thought things might be getting better, but today, I found a kind of peace about it. Whether or not this is a harbinger of good things to come, I don't know, but I'm accepting it for what it is for right now.

So why the long story? Because at some point in all this mess, I realized in a very palpable way that I was definitely being oppressed and that motivated me to put my trust ever more firmly in the Lord. In some ways, I think my insistence on not believing that it was oppression protected me in a way. I needed to find my way back to God, to have some healing take place in that relationship, to let go of a lot of the anger before I could be in a place where I could call my God my stronghold and actually believe that He wouldn't forsake me in my time of trouble.

The other thing that I realized as I read this verse is that despite my anger, despite how far from Him I ran, I was still looking back over my shoulder at Him and trusting Him on a certain level. My stronghold was in Him all the time, but I just didn't know it. That obedience and that desire to have my children see some better example about faith in me, that was my trusting in Him to not abandon me (even though I felt abandoned). The reality is that He didn't and He won't and that is what I must cling to when all seems lost.

Until tomorrow....

Pax Christi!

Psalm 5

To be honest, I struggled today with this psalm. It's not that it's difficult to understand, but I just didn't know what to say about it. I'm not terribly sure that I know now what I'm going to say, but I'm starting to think that this isn't about saying something meaningful, so much as a lesson in humility and obedience. I'm not sure why I need these lessons, but perhaps over the course of the next 145-ish days, I'll figure it out.

Today's psalm is one of the many lamenting psalms. Again, we see more contrast between the righteous and the wicked. It is also a psalm where the writer is beseeching God for deliverance from his enemies. When I was telling Gray earlier tonight about how I wasn't sure what to do with this one, I mentioned the subject of enemies and commented that I don't think I really have enemies. I mean, maybe I do, but I can't think of any right off the top of my head.

This isn't to boast about how awesome I am, just a statement of fact. I try my very best to get along with everyone I meet. It's both something I feel like I'm called to do (you know, that whole "love your neighbour" thing) and also because I'm at a point in my life where I just don't have the patience for drama from grownups. I have more than enough kid/tween drama without anything added to it. Gray gave me a significant look and suddenly I realized -- I do have enemies. Not of flesh and blood, but of spirit.

You destroy those who speak lies; the Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful. (verse 6)

The enemies of spirit are most adept when they manage to convince you that a lie is the truth. In particular, my enemies use not only lies of their own creation, but they use the depressive thoughts in my head -- which are the result of my own inner Gollum, as my blogger friend Matthew puts it -- to convince me that I know something to be true when it is not. These deceptions are indeed bloodthirsty as they have many times resulted in my contemplating, nearly attempting, and even attempting suicide.

The truth is that these enemies will be destroyed. Perhaps not now, perhaps not tomorrow, but eventually, because they are the antithesis of God's infinite goodness, they will meet their destruction. St. Paul reminds us that these enemies will be destroyed when he says, "The last enemy to be destroyed is death." (1 Corinthians 15:26) But how can one survive such enemies and find deliverance?

But I, through the abundance of Your steadfast love, will enter Your house, I will bow down toward Your holy temple in awe of You. Lead me, O Lord, in Your righteousness because of my enemies, make Your way straight before me. (verses 7-8)

To me, this imagery is so potently Catholic -- entering the house of the Lord, bowing before His temple, being in awe of His Presence. It also makes me think of the great graces to be had from the Sacraments. Those graces are what enable us to "endure to the end" that we might be saved (Matthew 24:13). They help us to see clearly the path of righteousness where God is leading us.

I have seen firsthand the power of the Sacraments and the graces which pour forth from them. Almost three years ago, I endured a trauma so powerful that it all but ripped my faith from me. Anger and bitterness toward God and a sense of abandonment by Him so intense that I began to question the deepest foundations of my faith plagued me for close to two years. I continued to go to Mass, confession, and pray bedtime prayers and mealtime blessings, but my heart was absent from all of it. There was a deep aching pain that accosted me whenever I began to think of God or even things of faith, so I tried very hard not to think about them. When I couldn't get away from them -- like at Mass -- I would often lose all control and burst into tears or else feel so overwhelmed that I just shut down into a numbness that was, itself, destructive.

At some point, about two years post-trauma, I began to see Fr. B. for spiritual direction. Knowing how severe and intense my depression was and the fact that I was struggling so mightily with my faith, he began by hearing my confession and giving me the Anointing of the Sick. Eventually, he began giving me the Eucharist and combined with the other two sacraments, created what I've come to call "The Trifecta." Then he put the graces of those sacraments to work by giving me a very specific penance. He told me to "go spend some time with Jesus in the tabernacle in the church." I wasn't prepared for that and wasn't really enthused about it the first time. What would I say to Him? I was still so angry and I told Fr. B that. He replied, "So tell Him you're angry. He can take it. It might do you some good." And then he walked with me over to the church from the rectory and gave me a blessing before leaving me alone in the quiet of the empty church.

I very nearly left in the first two minutes, but I didn't. I sat there through my discomfort and pain and told myself that I'd stay just 10 minutes and then go. At some point during that 10 minutes, those graces of the Sacraments started working on me. I didn't want to talk to Him or pray or anything, but I found myself doing just that. It started with a less than heartfelt Our Father and eventually moved into me unleashing all of my anger, bitterness, and every negative and destructive emotion I'd ever had onto Him. The tears began to flow at some point and then I found that I couldn't stop crying. A few tears turned into a full-on ugly cry (you know the one where you get blotchy red faced, faucet nosed, and an ugly grimaced expression). That sobbing progressed to a kind of gasping howl.

I don't know how long I cried that first day, but after a while, my sobs subsided and I sat in silence, not knowing what to do with myself as I wiped my face and nose. My eyes lit upon the hymnal in the pew and I turned to the old Latin hymn Tantum Ergo and began to chant it. It was the first time I'd felt any desire to sing in months. As I sang the last few notes, the church bells began to chime the noon Angelus. It was only then that I realised I'd been there not just 10 minutes, but -- to my shock -- a little over an hour! I prayed the Angelus prayers as a kind of benediction and then left. As I staggered to the car, feeling a bit weak and tired, I realized something had happened. I wasn't sure exactly what to make of it, but I knew that I felt lighter than when I'd arrived.

I've repeated this process several times and Fr. B has also prayed deliverance prayers over me as well. All of these sacramental graces have been acting like a kind of healing balm to my faith. There's still work to be done in that area and I still wrestle with anger at God, but I know that much of that has gotten better. I didn't really realise that until just recently. It's been a very slow process and I still have my doubts at times. I still feel abandoned and weak in my faith. I still feel fear at the prospect of declaring that I have hope for recovery for not just my faith but my depression too. That last one is a big one. That said, I do know that God is with me -- even if I sometimes have doubts about that -- and I know that He has promised to protect me and help me if I turn to Him. This promise is echoed in the final words of Psalm 5:

But let all who take refuge in You rejoice; let them ever sing for joy. Spread your protection over them, so that those who love your name may exult in you. For You bless the righteous, O Lord; you cover them with favour as with a shield. (verses 11-12)

Psalm 3

This psalm really hits me where I live. There's so much that speaks to me in it that I could honestly write two or three blog posts on it with no problem at all. Of course when I say that it hits me where I live, I'm talking about depression -- more specifically, the depressive episode I've been struggling through in the last three years.

O Lord, how many are my foes! Many are rising against me; many are saying to me, "There is no help for you in God." (verses 1-2)

Recently, on a couple of different occasions, Fr. B has said to me that he thinks that I've been dealing with not only the psychological part of depression but a definite spiritual part too. I've struggled mightily with my faith for most of this episode and still struggle with it even now at times. Gray has posited on many occasions that he believes I'm being spiritually attacked or oppressed. I'll admit, I've been reluctant to believe that. What I've been seeing are all along are all the signs of spiritual oppression and I've been ignoring them because I didn't want to believe that there was anything demonic going on.

Part of this is that I used to go to a church before I became Catholic where there were some people who saw demons under every rock and attributed demonic influence or attack to nearly any problem. Prayers for deliverance were pretty standard. I even went through prayers for deliverance from depression back then and when nothing happened, I grew very bitter toward the practice. What changed was that I trust Fr. B and his discernment. He's not the sort to see demons everywhere, so when he senses that there's something going on, he is serious. I had been very resistant to any kind of deliverance prayers or ministry until he and I started meeting for spiritual direction. My trust in him allowed me to put my hesitancy aside and let him pray prayers of deliverance over me. And this time, little by little, the various things that had kept me at odds with my faith started dissolving.

Despite this, I still resisted the idea until I had a very powerful experience of being spiritually attacked that frightened me so much that I could no longer ignore all the signs. The next time Fr. B and I met and I told him that, he prayed deliverance over me again and as I wept, he said he sensed something happening with me. I didn't feel any change, but over the next week I had a realization: I have been feeling less anger toward God, less animosity toward my faith, and there has been an increase in my desire to move toward God in the last several months. In short, there has been a very slow, steady healing of faith happening right under my nose and that is due in large part to my having been delivered of some of the spiritual oppression I've been experiencing. My foes have been many, rising up against me and whispering the lies that God will not help me. I had been drowning in the tide of these attacks and had believed the lies, but all of that has been changing.

But You, O Lord, are a shield around me, my glory, and the one who lifts up my head. I cry aloud to the Lord, and He answers me from His holy hill. (verses 3-4)

I know that despite being so attacked, God has protected me. He has protected me as He has from the day of my conception with the presence of my guardian angel. He has protected me through the interventions of my husband Gray, my therapist Pendragon, and my friends who have saved me from myself. He has lifted up my head through the encouragement of dear friends and family. He has heard my cries in the night, in the day, in my bed, in my car, and lying prostrate before Him present in the tabernacle. For a long time, the last part of verse 4 didn't resonate with me at all. I was under such a heavy oppression that I was unable to see Him or hear any kind of answers. To be honest, I still struggle to see Him and hear Him. The difference these days is that I've grown more able to bear what seems like His silence and absence.

I lie down and sleep; I wake again for the Lord sustains me. (verse 5)

Oh this verse! This verse! I'm getting a bit emotional just reading those words. You see I've been absolutely dreaming of being able to lie down and sleep. Sleep doesn't come easily for me. I struggle with horrific insomnia that is brought on by anxiety about lying down and closing my eyes. This is because of the nightmares that I have which take me back to my trauma again and again and again. When I finally do sleep, I don't want to wake because I'm so very tired from fighting nightmares. I don't feel sustained. Of all the verses in this psalm, this is the one I have the hardest time swallowing. It's the one that causes me to want to stop reading and close my Bible. Maybe one day it won't be so hard. Or maybe it always will be. Crosses and such, you know?

I am not afraid of ten thousands of people who have set themselves against me all around. (verse 6)

What a bold statement! In my case, I'm not surrounded by ten thousands of people, but I know there are likely quite a few darker forces at work who have definitely set themselves against me and do their best to not only surround me, but envelop me. Am I afraid? Honestly? Yeah, a bit. I'd like to be as bold as this, but I'm just not there yet. It's a process and one that I'm still muddling through.

Rise up, O Lord! Deliver me, O my God! For you strike all my enemies on the cheek; you break the teeth of the wicked. (verse 7)

Obviously, this is a prayer of the psalmist for help. I don't normally ask for my enemies cheeks to be struck or their teeth broken, but I do ask for God's protection from evil. I also ask the saints to pray with me against any evil that might beset me. St. Michael the Archangel is an especially powerful intercessor against evil because of his special status as the warrior angel who leads the heavenly army in the fight against Satan and his army in chapter 12 of Revelation.

Deliverance belongs to the Lord; may your blessing be on your people. (verse 8)

In the end, I cannot find my way out of any kind of oppression on my own. I need the help of the Lord which comes through prayers of deliverance prayed over me by Fr. B, frequent reception of the Sacraments, and remaining obedient to what is required of me by God. Being so vulnerable and trusting when it comes to this process doesn't come easily for me. I still wrestle with a great many doubts, fears, and a real lack of genuine hope. I still have difficulty with what seems to me to be God's silence and absence. I'd love to say that I'm becoming more mature in my faith through all of this, but I still have so many days when I'm sure that God looks at me and sees a whiny, ill-humoured, petulant child. I want that deliverance now, not tomorrow or next year or when I'm 50 years old. But just as my deliverance itself belongs to God, so does its timing. As impatient and immature as I am, there's nothing for it but to keep pressing on and to keep asking for His blessing and His mercy while I wait on Him.