Seems such a let-down!” She told me. "January. It can be cold, dreary and disappointing. Family relationships continue to devastate. Nancy still has cancer, extended family members are estranged and a teen still missing.”

It almost seemed cruel to tell my friend what a wonderful Christmas season our family enjoyed in sunny Santa Barbara, CA. Not only was the sky blue everyday but the sun brought a warmth that you could sit in, walk to the beach, ride bicycles with grandkids or plant flowers with your son. Each day was a joy and adventure with family and friends. Celebrating Christ’s birth with the Body of Christ in that part of the country was exhilarating. Yet there were many painful losses in the families that meet there too.

For many the holidays are painful. There is a missing chair at the dinner table, an empty crib or reminders of the joy of years gone by. It can be challenging to pick back up emotionally when January comes.

A dear friend recently told me she used to read a Psalm each day, but now she prays a Psalm several times a day—particularly during January. When she’s feeling depressed, she is at a loss for words and hope is hard to visualize. The Psalms give her language with which she can communicate her thoughts and feelings to God. Praying the Psalms gives her hope and helps her keep her focus on the Lord.

Eugene Peterson suggests praying the Psalms may be a good way to teach people to pray.

As a pastor I was charged with, among other things, teaching people to pray, helping them to   give voice to the entire experience of being human, and to do it both honestly and thoroughly. I found that it was not as easy as I expected… ‘Help’ and ‘Thanks!’ are our basic prayers. But honesty and thoroughness don’t come quite as spontaneously.

Untutored we tend to think that prayer is what good people do when they are doing their best. It is not…. It is the means by which we get everything in our lives out in the open before God. And so in my pastoral work of teaching people to pray, I started paraphrasing the Psalms into the rhythms and idiom of contemporary English.  (The Message, Eugene H. Peterson, 910-911)

Psalm 42:5-8 (The Message)

Why are you down in the dumps, dear soul?
Why are you crying the blues?
Fix my eyes on God—
Soon I’ll be praising again.
He puts a smile on my face.
He’s my God.

When my soul is in the dumps, I rehearse everything I know of you,
From Jordan depths to Hermon heights, including Mount Mizar.
Chaos calls to chaos,
To the tune of whitewater rapids.
Your breaking surf, your thundering breakers crash and crush me.
Then GOD promises to love me all day,
Sing songs all through the night!
--a prayer to the God of my life.

Psalm 61:1-5 in The Message.

God, listen to me shout, bend an ear to my prayer.
When I’m far from anywhere, down to my last gasp,
I call out, “Guide me up High Rock Mountain!”
You’ve always given me breathing room,
a place to get away from it all,
A lifetime pass to your safe-house,
An open invitation as your guest.
You’ve always taken me seriously, God,
made me welcome among those who know and love you.

Perhaps you prefer praying the Psalm 61:1-5 in the language of the NIV

Hear my cry, O God;
Listen to my prayer.
From the ends of the earth I call to you,
I call as my heart grown faint;
Lead me to the rock that is higher than I.
For you have been my refuge,
A strong tower against the foe.
I long to dwell in your tent forever
And take refuge in the shelter of your wings.
For you have heard my vows, O God;
You have given me the heritage of those who fear your name.

I continue to be “…convinced that only as we develop raw honesty and detailed thoroughness in our praying do we become whole, truly human in Jesus Christ, who also prayed the Psalms” (Eugene Peterson, The Message, 911).