The Remember Book

Psalm 102

In short Psalm 102 is a prayer of one whose life is falling apart, letting God know how desperately bad it has all become. Half the psalm is a lamentation of the deepest depths. Then in verse 12 a most powerful word is inserted, the word but! But You God are good; You will rebuild what has been destroyed; You will make all things right; You know the precise shape of my aching heart and You will heal it. It is Anne Lamott’s simple prayer of “Help me, help me help me,” and “Thank You, thank You, thank You.” When we allow God to take center-stage in our narrative, we are choosing to remember His kindness. In Philip Yancey’s book, Prayer, he records a woman’s letter:

“I have a quiet joy now, a kind of mysterious settledness to be able to say that God has met me. There are times when he answers me in a surprisingly direct way through his Word. There are other times when his answers are not a response to what I asked, but satisfy me anyway. It is as though God knows that there are questions underneath my questions and those are the ones he answers.”