I have first-hand understanding of David’s angst and self-pity in Psalm 6. I have written secular versions of this psalm—in fact, I have notebooks full of them. My “enemy” is usually something like lack or loneliness or loss, and I think it’s possible that this is David’s enemy here, too—he’s personifying his feelings. Sometimes we feel as though the world is against us.
I appreciate it when David goes hog-wild and wallows in his anguish. We’ve been there. Sorrow makes your bones ache. Amid grief or depression, a lot of us have experienced emotional hurt so great that the body must shoulder part of the load.
Emotional stewardship means finding a way to sort and make sense of all that we feel. In my own faith journey, it took me a long time to understand that strong emotion—even negative emotion—is healthy.
This message is an excerpt from “You, too, can be a psalmist” by Karen Craigo in the September 2019 issue of Gather magazine.
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