Psalm 51

Recently something very frustrating and hurtful happened at work (just as I was getting better). In many ways I felt like I have become a time bomb of some kind that no one wants, for matters really not of my own doing. well in short for good or bad I have probably completely switched from a flight response back into a fight response. or maybe I just realised,for the benefit of my daily survival in a toxic world, if i don't get my shits together, only more shit will be heaped onto me.

in this current climate I somehow managed to flip back to Psalm 51. It spoke to me first a couple of years ago after I have just been through court and imagined that to be the end of my trauma (which is now looking like the first of very many). Despite my liking of it I guess there has always been a tinge of anger that went along with it--Hey surely I didn't commit adultery! and no I didn't murder anyone either! Why do I need a psalm from someone who so gravely sinned to speak to me?

I guess the fear of responsibility is forever hanging, and persistently learned, as the clasp around my neck from those who need me as a scapegoat tighten, or, even if it is not yet tightening, there are plenty around me who, consciously or not, not fail to add in reminders.  Well I guess this is nothing new. For a few decades I have been the scapegoat for my mother's various pathology and unhappiness and only in very recent times she realised she has lost her grip, while I just fear once she becomes ill in health in some kind of way, all my efforts will be in vain.

reading of verse 16-17 of the psalm still stir something in me (and not just a little)--
You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;
you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart
you, God, will not despise.

given my problematic maternal attachment, I do have a feeling though that the current feelings these verses evoked are perhaps much more grief at how much I have been despised and resentment for having to survive and thrive(or at least pretend to be) in this toxic world rather than anything else...

but perhaps, just perhaps, coming back to this psalm means a move forward to the realisation - that at the end of the day, contrary to worldly beliefs, when tragedy hit whose grave sin was it or who really brought about the brokenness, really doesn't matter in the face that no one is actually despised?

Now, head knowledge apart, this is still very hard to swallow. and I guess in the context of my lingering perhaps relapsing(but hopefully not) GI symptoms, the swallowing bit is maybe a bit more than a mere metaphor.