Psalms for Sadness and Sorrow

Psalm 42

Like the deer that yearns for running streams, so my soul is yearning for you, my God. My soul is thirsting for God, the God of my life.

When can I enter and see the face of God? My tears have become my bread by day and by night, while people say to me continually, “Where is your God?”

These things I remember as I pour out my soul: how I went with the throng and led them in procession to the house of God, with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival.

Why are you cast down, my soul, and why groan within me? Hope in God; I will praise him again, my saviour and my God.

My soul is cast down within me; therefore I will remember you from the land of Jordan, the heights of Hermon, from Mount Mizar.

Deep calls to deep at the thunder of your cataracts; all your waves and breakers have swept over me.

By day the Lord will command his steadfast love, and at night his song will be with me— a prayer to the God of my life.

I will say to God, my rock: “Why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?”

Like a crushing wound in my bones, my enemies taunt me, while they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”

Why are you cast down, my soul, and why groan within me? Hope in God; I will praise him again, my saviour and my God.