Devotions

20230418

like a solitary bird

Psalm 102:3-11 (JDV)

Psalm 102:3 Yes, my days finish off like smoke, and my bones burn like a furnace.
Psalm 102:4 My heart is suffering, drying up like grass; I even forget to eat my food.
Psalm 102:5 Due to my loud groaning, my flesh sticks to my bones.
Psalm 102:6 I am like an owl of the open country, like a little owl among the ruins.
Psalm 102:7 I stay awake; I am like a solitary bird on a roof.
Psalm 102:8 My enemies taunt me all day long; they ridicule and use my name as a curse.
Psalm 102:9 I eat ashes like bread and mingle my drinks with tears
Psalm 102:10 because of your indignation and wrath; because you have picked me up and thrown me aside.
Psalm 102:11 My days are like a lengthening shadow, and I am drying up like grass.

like a solitary bird

Gloria Hutchinson speaks of a woman who had just gone through a divorce, and “every common chore from driving to grocery shopping now loomed like a high-jump crossbar set at Olympic heights. Insomnia had her groaning with the psalmist, “I lie awake; I am like a lonely bird on the house- top” (Psalm 102:7). Her prayer was angry, accompanied by pounding on the wall: “Where are you when | need you the most? I don’t see you wiping every tear from my eye!” (8)

We may not feel like God is there when we face loneliness, but he is. We can cry out to him. He wants us to.

Hutchinson, Gloria. Be Comforted: Healing in Times of Loss, Anger, Anxiety, Loneliness, Sickness, Death. Cincinnati, Ohio: St. Anthony Messenger Press, 2004.