Please Don’t Give Up

I’ve been pondering the tragedy of the rise in domestic violence and suicides in our country during the pandemic. These silent pandemics are the reason for an alarming number of deaths and the tragic nature of these stories is no less than what we are hearing on the news during the current second wave in India.

A psalm that reflect the feeling that many possibly feel in such situations is:

Yahweh is the God who continually saves me.
    I weep before you night and day.
² Please bend down and listen to my sobbing,
    for my life is riddled with troubles
    and death is just around the corner!
³ Everyone sees my life ebbing out.
    They consider me a hopeless case and see me as a dead man.
⁴ They’ve all left me here to die, helpless,
    like one who is doomed for death.
⁵ They’re convinced you’ve forsaken me,
    certain that you’ve forgotten me completely—
    abandoned, pierced, with nothing to look forward to but death.
⁶ They have discarded me and thrown me down
    into the deepest darkness as into a bottomless pit.
⁷ I feel your wrath, and it’s a heavy weight upon me,
    drowning me beneath a sea of sorrow.
Pause in his presence
⁸ Why did you turn all my friends against me?
    You’ve made me like a cursed man in their eyes.
    No one wants to be with me now.
    You’ve caught me in a trap with no way out.
⁹ Every day I beg for your help. Can’t you see my tears?
    My eyes are swollen with weeping.
    My arms are wide, longing for mercy,
    but you’re nowhere to be found.
¹⁰ How can those who are cut off from your care
    even know that you are there?
    Do departed spirits rise up to praise you?
Pause in his presence
¹¹ Who can give thanks for your love in the graveyard?
    Who preaches your faithfulness in the place of destruction?
¹² Does death’s darkness declare your miracles?
    How can anyone who’s in the grave, where all is forgotten,
    remember how you keep your promises?
¹³ Lord, you know my prayer before I even whisper it.
    At each and every sunrise you will
    continue to hear my cry until you answer.
¹⁴ O Lord, why have you thrown my life away?
    Will you keep turning the other way every time I call out to you?
¹⁵ I’ve had to live in poverty and trouble all my life.
    Now I’m humiliated, broken, and helpless before your terrors
    and I can’t take it anymore.
¹⁶ I’m overwhelmed by your burning anger.
    I’ve taken the worst you could give me,
    and I’m speechless before you.
¹⁷ I’m drowning beneath the waves of this sorrow,
    cut off with no one to help.
¹⁸ All my loved ones and friends keep far away from me,
    leaving me all alone with only darkness as my friend.

Jesus also went through the dark place, and He overcame. So let us pray for the ones who are up against a wall, discarded and close to death. May they call on the one who knows everything and the only help in times of trouble.