How to Wait with Peace in These Fearful Times—7 Psalms of Comfort

I’m obsessed.

The virus vernacular litters my speech. 

It’s embedded in my thoughts.

It haunts my actions as I click and scroll and watch.

I lecture my parents about isolating because my fear for their health dogs me. I don’t worry about myself. But my list of loves—young, old, and weakened stacks high.

Wait for the Lord my morning Psalm urges.

And never has waiting been so excruciating. 

As a kid, I thought Christmas Day would never come– with its promise of coveted gifts and once-a-year-treats.

Or my sweetest birthdate would arrive and a driver’s license would finally rest in my palm. 

Or meet my true love. When Lord? I’d implore.

Or I’d ever graduate from college, anxious to get my first job. Silly girl! 

But never had waiting been like this…The double whammy of a global illness, and the specter of death suspended over a beloved kin, robbed cruel of his vibrant life by a stroke.

And while my heart shatters, the world shatters with me as more sicken and social gathering recommendations drop to less than 10. 

And events cancel.

Stores, restaurants, and theaters shutter.

Churches sit dark.

And death tolls rise like a sweeping black tidal wave.

But for me, even worse than this pandemic panic— was waiting for my loved one to take his last breath, 

All ears attuned to every silence and every rasp. 

A shell of a body lingering fragile between this earth and heaven’s open gates.

The time of departure hovered near.

We knew it.

We cried.

We laughed at the stories of a lifetime well lived. 

And we inhabited a weird half-life as time stood still and the inevitable inched closer in excruciating steps.

So while I waited for the dreaded phone call. 

My beloved Father-in-law waited for God’s final call—welcome home my son.

My sorrow now finds solace in family, and the Psalms soothing balm.

So I turn off the shrill voice of the media and return to God’s whisper of peace.

So here are seven of my favorite verses of comfort from the first 27 chapters of the Psalms:

1. I am confident I will see God’s goodness while I am here on earth in the land of the living! Wait patiently for the LORD. Be brave and courageous yes wait patiently for the LORD! Ps 27:13-14

2. When I look at your heavens, the work of your finger, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. Ps 8:3-5

3. For the kingship belongs to the Lord, and he rules over the nations. All the prosperous of the earth eat and worship; before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, even the one who couldn’t keep himself alive… it shall be told of the Lord to the coming generation; they shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn, that he has done it. Ps 22:28-31

4. May the Lord answer you in the day of trouble! May the name of the God of Jacob protect you! Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God. Ps 20:1,7

5. But you O Lord, are a shield about me, my glory and the lifter of my head. I cried aloud to the Lord, and he answered me from his holy hill. I lay down and slept; I woke again, for the Lord sustained me. Ps 3:3-5

6. For he has not despised or abhorred the affliction the afflicted, and he has not hidden his face from him, but has heard, when he cried to him. Ps 27:14

7. The Lord is a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble. And those who know your name put their trust in you, for you, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you. Ps 9:9-10

And my obsessed brain finds peace in remembering our God commands the universe and in His time—will deliver us from this cursed scourge. No matter what happens in the uneasy future, He walks beside us. He holds our hands and gathers us under the shelter of His wings.

It’s time to be smart. 

It’s time to be brave.

It’s time to wait… and to trust our God who sustains us.

___________________________

-Will you join me in a deep dive into the Psalms?

-What are your favorite Psalms of comfort?