Weaponized Memory: Surviving the Spiritual Gaslight
Psalm 44: When God Doesn't Show Up
Psalm 44 showed up in today’s Office of Readings, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it. If you get a chance today, read it. It’s beautiful.
On another note: Please pray for all of those who are experiencing loss of property and power due to the storms.
I remember when I used to think being faithful would protect me from this. Not from suffering. I can be naive, but not that naïve. That God would spare me this: the silence, the slow ache of showing up for a God who won’t answer.
Psalm 44 doesn’t lie. It doesn’t sugarcoat divine absence. It says the thing good Christians get taught not to say: “You helped them, but you’re not helping me.” You gave them victory. Me? I get defeat with a side of humiliation. I’m trying. I'm praying. I’m showing up. And nothing. Zilch.
This is where St. Catherine of Siena whispers to me, but it sounds like a shout. In The Dialogue (a must read BTW), she says that the devil uses our memory as a weapon. Not as a museum of God's goodness, but as a catalog of shame. If God gave us memory to remember truth, the enemy rewires it to remember only failure, betrayal, and self-contempt. Catherine calls this kind of memory spiritual death. She’s is right. Dead right. Not because it's traumatic. Because it’s dishonest.
And it works. I don’t remember mercy. I remember the moment I said the thing I shouldn’t have. I remember who I didn’t help. I remember the prayers that died in my mouth. The enemy narrates my life in past tense: “You were loved, maybe. You had faith, once. But not anymore.”
That’s the lie. And silence is where it breeds, multiplies, and devours.
So when I pray Psalm 44, I’m not asking for inspiration. I’m asking for truth. I’m asking God to wake up—not because I think He sleeps, but because I do. I fall asleep in shame and wake up in despair. I forget who He is. I forget who I am. And memory becomes a courtroom where I’m always the defendant and the verdict is already in.
But if I believe St. Catherine—and I do—then I know memory isn’t meant to kill me. It’s meant to anchor me. It’s meant for me to recall the countless blessings and the gift of His endless mercy. It’s how I survive the silence. It’s how I refuse the devil’s version of my story. Thanks be to God.
So yes, I’ll still pray. Not because I feel God, but because Psalm 44 says I’m allowed to scream at the sky and call it worship. Because I’m not going to let the enemy have my memory. Because if I forget that God was good, if I stop trying to remember, then I stop being anything at all.
Don’t sleep, O Lord. Rise up, come to my help. Deliver me for the sake of your merciful love.
If you think your friends and family would enjoy The Call to Holiness, please share with them. The purpose of The Call to Holiness is to help each other pray more and to enter into a deeper friendship with Jesus. God bless you all.
© 2025, Lawain McNeil, Mission Surrender, LLC.