Psalm 22:1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? and are so far from my cry and from the words of my distress?
Many of us listened to the words of this psalm during Holy Week—a psalm of lament, of distress, of anger, and, in guarded measure, of hope. It is the psalm of rock bottom that leads to the first of the twelve steps of recovery: We are powerless over our addiction and our lives have become unmanageable.
We are not comfortable with powerlessness. We hope that there is always one more book we can read, one more thing we can do, one more tweak we can make to control a situation. But life tells us otherwise. We all encounter moments utterly beyond our control, whether they involve addiction or some other upheaval.
While we know God does not forsake us, I value this psalm and its grittiness and painful honestly. Rock bottom is a messy, holy place. When we arrive there, we lie down, weep, and lament. We doubt, we rage, and we rest. We are on holy ground, and God is here.
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