My Soul Waits: Solace for the Lonely in Psalms Marva J. Dawn

“An overwhelming number of us are lonely,” writes Marva Dawn. “Sometimes we are lonely for a specific reason: our spouse has recently died or left us; our children have just gone from home or have been tragically killed; we are fighting a particular battle against illness or suffering the ravages of chemotherapy; we are new in the neighborhood; our values are different from those of our work colleagues; it is a Friday night and all our other single friends have dates.

Sometimes our loneliness is a general, pervasive alienation: we just don’t feel as if we belong in our place of work, in our community, in our family, even in our church.” Our struggle with loneliness often results in a lament directed at God. We might say something like “How long, LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?” When we cry out words like these, we find ourselves praying the words of the Psalms.

In My Soul Waits, Dawn guides us through psalms that reveal the burdens of our souls to God, and in turn reveal God’s profound, intimate concern for our pain and a promise to abide with us in it. Readers feeling the sting of loneliness will take great comfort in this very personal book. Those who strive to support the lonely among them will take wise counsel from the Scriptures it expounds. All will encounter a renewed hope in the One who lists our tears only to wipe them all away.