Psalm 22

I've been thinking about this Psalm a lot this week because we sang a song based on it at church last Sunday. Nathan wrote it, and it is based on verses 22-31. Brendan and I always loved the song, and we chose it to be the corporately sung song at our wedding. My dad always says that we were like "rock stars" up there. The melody is exuberant as are the words, and I've never felt more exuberant than that moment right after we exchanged vows! So, we probably did seem more energetic in our singing than usual :).

Because it was our "wedding song," I always get choked up when we sing it. The words meant a lot to me when we sang it that day. The psalm speaks about praising God because of his goodness to us, and the psalmist feels it is crucial to worship him publicly and to fulfill our vows made to the Lord. It was SUPER appropriate for a wedding, especially when the wedding is the result of a relationship developed in a crucible of pretty grown-up trials for a really young couple- scary illness and career devastation. I have always known how important those experiences were to Brendan's and my development as a couple (heck! as people), and I have always been exceedingly impressed by God's goodness to us throughout them. The wedding felt like the culmination of lots of waiting and lots of evidence of God's blessing and provision.

When we sang the psalm on Sunday, I was struck by how all the words are even more true and more remarkable to me now than they were on that day. Singing that song with Spud growing inside me made the parts about generations knowing and confessing God as Lord so poignant. Reading the psalm later, I noticed the MANY times that David refers to future generations and to his own infancy: "From birth I was cast upon you; from my mother's womb you have been my God."-v. 10. I've been thinking and praying a lot that God would already have set his Holy Spirit to work in Spud's little heart and the hearts of all the other tinytowns I love. My mom, who had a far from Christian upbringing, has been asking God for a long time that all the rest of the children who come from her line will be redeemed children of God, and I have taken up that prayer. I pray it with confidence, too, knowing that God shows "love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments." So, that gives us 999 more generations! :)

The other interesting thing to me about this psalm is that the first two-thirds of it is majorly depressing. It starts with those famous words, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" David is worn out and feels threatened by all the danger and sin that surrounds him. But, as he preaches to himself throughout the psalm, the mood becomes more and more joyful. Joy is the inevitable result of truly reflecting on what the Lord has done. So, of course, with Spud in my belly and that sad time of the summer falling farther behind me, I'm becoming more and more joyful too. It is true that "he has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help." v. 24. I really wish that everyone who has or is suffering could feel that way because, even though it is very true, not everyone gets to see it or feel relief in this life. But, heaven is our home.