You know that old country song? “I’ve got tears in my ears from lying on my bed crying over you.” That’s what Psalm 6 is. A person wringing out the couch every night, sick and desperate, calling out to God.
This is one of the penitential psalms—those raw prayers where people are falling apart. The psalmist starts: please Lord, don’t punish me when you’re angry. Don’t discipline me when you’re furious. And all I thought was, yeah, that’s actually good parenting advice. Don’t punish when you’re mad. Because then it’s your anger coming out, not real discipline. It’s just harm. And this person, whoever wrote Psalm 6, they’re already suffering. They don’t need wrath on top of it.
The thing that struck me is how thoroughly they’re falling apart. Have mercy on me because I’m frail. My bones are shaking. My whole body is completely terrified. We like to think we’re strong, don’t we? We think we’re invincible. But the truth is we’re all frail. Sometimes it just takes getting sick to realize it.
And here’s what got me—the psalmist is sick, and not only that, but other people are piling on. There’s this blame floating around: if you’re sick, it’s your fault. You sinned, you didn’t pray hard enough, you didn’t believe strongly enough. We knew this back then. Even today you get drifts of it, that spiritual blame. And when you’re already down, people coming at you with that—it just does more damage.
But then the psalmist says something that stopped me. “But you, Lord.” Just like that. Not “but I hope” or “but I think maybe.” It’s a statement of confidence in the middle of everything falling apart. But you, Lord. How long will this last? Come back to me. Deliver me for the sake of your faithful love. Not because I’ve earned it—the psalmist knows better than that. But because you are faithful. Because you love me.
That’s the whole thing, isn’t it. When we’re completely undone, that’s when we need to remember God’s steadfast, stubborn love. Not our strength. Not our righteousness. Just God showing up.
A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope