Psalm 119 - Daleth

 ד Daleth
 ²⁵ I am laid low in the dust;
   preserve my life according to your word.
²⁶ I recounted my ways and you answered me;
   teach me your decrees.
²⁷ Let me understand the teaching of your precepts;
   then I will meditate on your wonders.
²⁸ My soul is weary with sorrow;
   strengthen me according to your word.
²⁹ Keep me from deceitful ways;
   be gracious to me through your law.
³⁰ I have chosen the way of truth;
   I have set my heart on your laws.
³¹ I hold fast to your statutes, O LORD;
   do not let me be put to shame.
³² I run in the path of your commands,
   for you have set my heart free.

NIV 1984

This psalm resonates with my frailty and helplessness.  Every day, I face pain and the reality of my health.  I am laid low with the humbling fact that I am not invincible, at least not on my own. 

I always seem to come back to this psalm whenever I've hit a low and I have trouble turning back to God. 

I came back from my first visit with the foot doctor and got news that not only was my foot broken again, but I'd be unable to run the remainder of the spring.  Again, something that I loved was taken away from me.  I remember being very upset that night and wondering aloud to God why He had done this to me again.

Over the next several days, as I was forced to explain the foot cast back on my foot, I had many people tell me that maybe there was a reason for this.  One person in particular bluntly said that God was doing this intentionally to give me a message, even if neither of us knew what that message was.

Maybe that's the hardest part of this for me: I still don't know why.  "Let me understand the teaching of your precepts; then I will meditate on your wonders." I am laid low.  Have I not recounted my ways?  Is that why this understanding is still escaping me?

However I get there, I know I can only literally run again, when I run in the path of His commands.