Episode #56: A Deep Dive into Psalm 45:1 with Alaena Stahl

The Refuge Podcast with Jennifer Elwood

This episode comes courtesy of a call out during a church service months ago. During prayer time during the church service, I prayed about the podcast and contemplated whether or not to create the deep dive episodes with guests. I saw my guest Alaena Stahl as part of the worship team that morning and wondered if she might be a guest... And when the call out happened, Pastor Dusty said that whatever I was wrestling with, God was in it. And then sent Alaena over to pray for me, so here we are.

This episode also comes courtesy of many texts and face-to-face interactions that ensued over a busy summer with two moms and 6 collective children and managed to carve out an afternoon that went blessedly uninterrupted. Diving into Psalm 45:1, we discussed:

• a few different translations of Psalm 45:1—"My heart bursts its banks,

spilling beauty and goodness. I pour it out in a poem to the king, shaping the river into words" (the Message paraphrase was our favorite).

• some of the original Hebrew words from this verse
• what this verse meant to us personally as a Psalm of a bride to King Jesus
• the importance of pouring out our joy and lamentation as a river into words to the Lord
• Alaena shared a poem from a time of grieving in her life, and I shared the vision the Lord gave me of my dear friend Nancy Ness, whose Lady Lits' group inspired me to deep dive into this verse

Alaena is a singer/song-writer as well as the co-owner of Catalyst Coffee in Yakima, WA with her husband Ryan. They have three amazing children and are robustly involved in the ministry of Vineyard Church Yakima. You can check out their beautiful coffee shop in Yakima @catalyst.coffee.co.