For I am Poor and Needy

By Susan Vaughan Shumake

Psalm 109:21-22

But you, O Sovereign LORD,

deal well with me for your name’s sake;

out of the goodness of your love, deliver me.

For I am poor and needy,

and my heart is wounded within me.

*****

Today is a day much like any day lately. The haze of gray over the water has hindered the view. The water and the sky meet in a white mist of fog and the horizon disappears. The flocks of ducks fly and know their way and yet I cannot find my own.

The floods of rains have caused the water to rise and approach, moving beyond its place of security. With each passing storm the landscape is changed forever, never to be what it was before. The winter cold bites briskly on the branches as the wind blows. Yet I stand almost frozen.

Every day I awake without a view. The torrents of troubles have left me poor and needy and my heart is wounded within me. I have lost so much and lost my way and lost, lost, lost day after day. I have fallen so many times that now I fear falling. I fear failing. But you, O Sovereign LORD, deal well with me for your name’s sake; out of the goodness of your love, deliver me. You are Sovereign, over all my ways. You are Sovereign over all my days.

For I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded within me. Out of the goodness of your love, deliver me.

Sincerely, Susan