“My tears have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me, Where is thy God?”
The Shelter
The psalmist describes his tears as meat, food, the thing sustaining him day and night, in place of actual nourishment. This is not poetic exaggeration for effect. It is an honest description of what grief actually does to a body and a life, consuming the ordinary rhythms of eating and resting until weeping becomes the thing you are running on instead.
Notice the added weight of the taunt: where is thy God. Grief this deep often arrives with an accusing chorus, whether from others or from your own mind, questioning whether the God you have trusted is actually present or actually cares, precisely when his presence feels least evident. The psalmist does not hide this question. He records it as part of the honest experience.
This psalm gives permission for something many people withhold from themselves in grief: naming exactly how consuming it is, without immediately rushing to a resolved, faith-filled conclusion. The psalmist will get there, later in this same psalm, but not yet, not in this verse. First, the tears are simply named as what they actually are.
If your own grief has become the thing you are running on, day and night, while some voice, internal or external, asks where God has gone, you are not failing this process by admitting it. You are doing exactly what this verse already did, three thousand years before you.
Take Refuge
- Name honestly how consuming your current grief actually is, without minimizing it.
- Notice any accusing voice asking where God is, and bring that question to him directly.
- Give yourself permission today to simply weep, without rushing to resolution.
Prayer
Lord, my tears have been my meat, and I have heard the question of where you are. I bring you both today, the grief and the question, without pretending either away. Amen.
Carry this today
Naming the depth of grief honestly is not a failure of faith.