His Love Is Moving

A Reflection on the Psalm for June 11th, 2023:
The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

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Psalm 147

R. Praise the Lord, Jerusalem.

Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem! Praise your God, O Zion! For he strengthens the bars of your gates; he blesses your children within you. 

R. Praise the Lord, Jerusalem.

He grants peace within your borders; he fills you with the finest of wheat. He sends out his command to the earth; his word runs swiftly. 

R. Praise the Lord, Jerusalem.

He declares his word to Jacob, his statutes and ordinances to Israel. He has not dealt thus with any other nation; they do not know his ordinances. 
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R. Praise the Lord, Jerusalem.

At work recently, a presenter in a video series on dying shared that, of the 150 psalms in the Bible, about 70 percent are psalms of lament. These laments are sometimes personal and sometimes communal. 

There’s something precious about the acknowledgement that we are going to have seasons, sometimes long seasons, of lament.

Now, lament isn’t whining or complaining (though it may include some complaints). Lament is a process of grieving. In a broken world, lament feels so natural to me. There are seasons of my life when the cheerful psalms of praise feel as if they don’t belong to me, when I’m a witness to joy but not a participant. In those times, I’m tempted to shut my ears and block out the joy. 

The other day I was at the pharmacy, filling a prescription. My husband had had his eye surgically removed, as he had completely lost vision in it, and it was incredibly painful. The prescription was for an eye ointment (for the socket, I mean – they didn’t let us bring the eyeball home and then make us give it ointment). Our pharmacist, whom we’ve known for a decade, remarked how it didn’t seem fair that good people like my husband had to go through so much pain when there were proper dirtbags out there enjoying their health and good fortune. 

In her own way, she felt moved to join our lament, but it was a lament without the recognition of God’s response to my lament.

Lament is a response to a deep need in my soul to take all of my hurt, brokenness, and suffering to the Lord. It’s a response to my need to feel His love for me when things are too hard for me to handle alone. That isn’t incompatible with my praise, because I know that the same God who holds me in my suffering also offers to me the greatest of consolation. His love is not static, still, or stagnant. His love is moving in me, around me, and through me. His love gives me peace, renews me, fills me with finest wheat, and strengthens my soul. Praise is the natural inward and outward reaction to His loving and consoling response to my lament.

Through this long season, with much to lament, I’ve found myself more and more drawn to psalms and songs of praise. I know God’s answer to me is to provide everything I need, both through His overflowing grace and through the acts of mercy performed by His children. 

I can praise the Lord, even in my lament, because I have a good Father who gives me all I truly need.



Stéphanie Potter

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