Out of the Depths of My Own Divided Heart

Reflection on Psalm 130 (Grail Translation)

Out of the depths I cry to You O Lord.

This has become the atmosphere in which my soul lives. Not in the clarity of certainty but in the shadowed place where my heart feels torn by realities I cannot easily name. I carry loves and loyalties in one hand and a longing that I barely know how to speak in the other. None of these things are simple and the strain settles deep within my chest.

My inner state is often fraught with distraction. A constant underlying stress hums through the day. There are moments when I feel as if I am being pulled in two different directions by forces that both hold truth. Yet I cannot make any of it plain to others. What remains visible is only the fatigue, the slowness the need to move through each day with careful steps. I can no longer hurry from one task to another as I once did. Now even one task beyond the essentials can feel like the limit and some may look on and wonder why I move so slowly without ever knowing the quiet battle unfolding beneath the surface.

I spend my days caring for an elderly parent whose needs rightly shape the rhythm of my life. This responsibility is holy yet it requires a deep well of patience a gentleness that cannot be rushed. My home has become a small hermitage where every act must be done with intention. Prayer must form the heart of it all or else I begin to unravel. There are mornings when opening the Psalms feels like opening the only window in a room that has grown tight with pressure.

Lord hear my voice. Let Your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleading.

I do not speak from the confidence I once had but from the fragile honesty of a man who knows his limits. St. Isaac the Syrian teaches that to see one’s own sin is a greater miracle than raising the dead. Those words land in me now with a weight that once would have frightened me. I see my weakness. I see how easily I am scattered. And perhaps this is the first mercy.

If You O Lord should mark our guilt who would survive. Yet with You is forgiveness.

I know that I cannot resolve the inner tensions by force or clarity of mind. I cannot untangle the knots of the heart with sheer effort. So I turn again to prayer. I turn to the Jesus Prayer when the mind refuses to be still. I turn to the memory of the Desert Fathers who teach that when confusion increases we must go down into humility deepen our repentance and hold fast to the remembrance of God. I turn to the counsel of those who urge me to strengthen the disciplines of the heart: fasting, vigils, and silence so that God Himself might breathe where I cannot.

My soul is waiting for the Lord. I count on His word.

That is all I can do. I wait not for answers but for His presence to steady me. I wait for the light that comes quietly the way dawn rises for the watchman who stands through the long night. I feel like that watchman. Tired. Worn. Yet still looking toward the horizon for the faint shimmer that tells me God has not abandoned me to my confusion.

My soul is longing for the Lord more than the watchman for daybreak.

And in this longing there is both pain and grace. I cannot see the whole path. I cannot now speak openly of the things that stir beneath the surface. I can only stand in the depths and offer God my weariness my divided heart my desire for Him alone. This is the hidden poverty that becomes the beginning of hope.

O Israel hope in the Lord. With the Lord there is mercy. With Him is fullness of redemption.

So I lay down the burden of clarity and take up instead the quiet work of prayer and patience. I ask only that He shape me according to His will and not according to fear or pressure or the unspoken demands of others. I ask that He let my soul rest in Him so that whatever step comes next will rise not from anxiety but from trust.

Lord out of the depths I cry to You.

Hold me in the waiting.

Teach me to rest in You alone.

For You are my strength and my salvation and in Your time You will make the way known.