"For There is None to Help"

This evening I thought to myself, "It might be time for bed when we've both cried through dinner and have no idea why we're laughing so hard ten minutes later in the bathtub."

Seriously though, y'all -- we're not always peas and carrots over here.

Just take a look at the white noise of basically my entire day:

Ugh. My quiet time this morning feels like a decade ago. 

My daily reading in the Psalms was the 22nd chapter. 

I sobbed over my morning tea as I read verses such as,

"Be not far from me, for trouble is near;

For there is none to help." (v11)

"I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint;

My heart is like wax; it is melted within me." (v14)

"My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue cleaves to my jaws..." 

(v15)

If these words don't perfectly describe how I feel lately.
Especially the part about there being none to help. With Jacob working so many hours, I am literally single-parenting this hot mess on top of being 37 weeks pregnant and it is not fun.

"But You, O Lord, be not far off; 

O You my help, hasten to my assistance." (v19)

But guess what other things are said here?

"In You our fathers trusted; they trusted and You delivered them.

To You they cried out and were delivered; in You they trusted and were not disappointed." (vv4-5)

"...He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted;

Nor has He hidden His face from him;

"But when he cried to Him for help, He heard." (V24)

During said bath time, I was reaching my breaking point.

So I brought my Bible to the side of the tub, flipped it back open to the passage from this morning -- but before I could read the first words again ("My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?") Katie dumped *1/4 cup of water over the side of the tub and onto the pages.

I was definitely ready to throw in the towel then. (The towel, the rug, the toilet paper -- you get the idea. Might as well just soak it all if I can't even read my Bible in times of trouble like a good Christian.)

*Side note: I know it was 1/4 cup of water because *cough* somebody *cough* had given her my measuring cup from the kitchen and it has become her favorite bath toy. 

(Ok, it was me.)

But God never throws in the towel on me. 

Just like my daughter, I cry over spilled milk (or, in her case, the lack thereof); and yet, He still hears me when I cry. He still comforts me. He still delivers me.

In fact, those very words that begin this Psalm are familiar to us in another passage of Scripture: when Jesus was giving up His life for mine on the cross. 

Parents suffer for their children.

Christ suffered for me.

For this reason I can obey the command in v23:

"You who fear the Lord, praise Him;

All you descendants of Jacob, glorify Him, and stand in awe of Him, all you descendants of Israel."

After said bath time. What a goober.

"The afflicted will eat and be satisfied;

Those who seek Him will praise the Lord.

Let your heart live forever!" (v26)