Psalms

What I Found At The End

clothedwithjoy 4 Comments

I have a confession to make. For years I avoided reading the Psalms in my personal devotion time. I think that somewhere in my prideful heart I assumed that the Psalms were for people who couldn’t handle the rest of the Bible. In my mind they had become a kind of “Bible Lite.”

This attitude was full of pride, obviously, and since I’m confessing this to you, you’ve probably guessed that at some point I must have had a change of heart – and you’d be right. It wasn’t many years ago that I reached the end of myself.

Have you been there? The uttermost, absolute end of yourself?

While I stood there at the end–the end of me, the end of me knowing where my life was heading, what my purpose was, what to do and not to do, say and not to say, it was there, in that place of utter desperation and brokenness that I discovered The Psalms.

Oh where had they been all my life? How could I have possibly disdained them? Why did I never devour them before? What a prideful fool I had been.

So there at the end I opened the psalms and I read.

I read one after another and each spoke volumes to my shattered heart. When my prayers had dried and my pain was too deep to find the words to speak I read the Psalms aloud to God, my Savior. The Psalms themselves became my very own words spoken from my heart and through my tears. They were my cries for help. They were my cries of pain. They were my cries of confession. And at last, they were my cries of Hope.

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It saddens me that I had to reach the end of myself to discover the beauty and significance of the Psalms. I love the entire Word of God and every verse is precious to me, but no matter what else I read each day in the Word, I always first open to the Psalms.

If you have not yet discovered the joy of reading the Psalms or if your heart is hard, or broken or maybe you’ve run out of words to cry out to God, there is hope. It’s not too late. I encourage you to take the Bible in your hands, open up to Psalm 1 and start reading.

Read day after day until you reach the last one, and when the final verse of Psalm 150 is read, flip back and begin again.

Copyright © Rebecca Onkar, Moms of Faith®, All Rights Reserved

This post was originally written for Moms of Faith®

Psalm Snob

clothedwithjoy 2 Comments

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There was a time, a time before I was broken, a time when I didn’t know, but thought I did, that I proudly would have worn this title. “Psalm Snob,”  that was me.

I’ve written about this experience in my bi-weekly blog post for Moms of Faith. Read it Here.

As usual – you don’t have to be a MOM to visit. 😉 This one’s for everyone.

Clothed with JOY

clothedwithjoy 3 Comments

5minutefriday

The Word is: Joy

The word is Joy and silly me – I got stumped. Uhhhhhh. My blog is called Clothed with Joy, so let’s write about that.

For months, nay years, certain friends regularly encouraged me to write. I didn’t take it seriously until a couple months ago when I was reading in Psalms (as I do every morning – that’s a whole ‘nother post) and I read in Psalm 30 – “You have clothed me with joy.” And that was it. I hadn’t been looking for a blog name – but there it was – right in front of me and I knew that it was meant to be the name of my blog.

And that started it all.

I found a door I hadn’t been looking for. Had I forced open that door before it was the right time, I would have been terrified (and fallen flat on my face). But with the Name came the Key – and the peace – AND the JOY!

What a blessing this blog has been in my life. What a joy to write. What an adventure to imagine where it will take me.

God is good and His timing is perfect (best even.) 🙂

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This was written for Five Minute Fridays where you write on a specific word for only 5 minutes, click for link.