Grief & Loss
Psalm 34:18
Lord, I feel like I'm breaking, and I've been hiding how close to the edge I am. Your word says You are near to the brokenhearted. Come near now, in the pieces — I won't pretend to be strong. Sit closest to me tonight. Amen.
“The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.”
— Psalm 34:18
David wrote Psalm 34 after one of the least dignified moments of his life. He was on the run from Saul, hiding among the Philistines at Gath, and when he was recognized he saved himself by pretending to be insane — scratching at the gate, letting spit run down his beard, until the king threw him out as a madman. That is the man who writes, 'The LORD is near to the brokenhearted, and saves the crushed in spirit.' He is not describing a feeling from a comfortable room. The Hebrew for 'crushed' is the word for something shattered into pieces, and 'near' is the word for a kinsman who lives close by — the one with the right and the duty to step in. So the promise is not that God admires you once you have recovered. It is that when you are in pieces He moves closest, the way family moves in when the worst has happened.
A new voiced prayer each day — for the morning, the commute, the sleepless 3 a.m.
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