Lamenting
Psalm 42, John 11:32-36, Revelation 21:3-5
This time last year, my husband and I lost our first baby. The most helpful thing in our grieving process was having friends just sit with us as we described the loss, both the celebratory memories of finding out about the baby and the trauma of finding out we had lost it. Through tears we got to share our grief, and through tears, our friends listened and grieved with us. A couple of months later our roommate at the time and friend lost her friend suddenly overnight. A surgery that was supposed to bring her physical healing brought her to healing in Jesus’s arms. There was nothing I could do or say to help bring my friend’s lost friend back, but I sat with her as she had sat with me a couple months before as she cried and shared all the wonderful memories she had with that friendship. And as she wept, I wept with her as she had done for me.
It’s important to know that not only did we find healing in our community through these losses, but we found healing in crying out to God as well. In all this loss we cried out to our Father, sometimes in anger, in sadness, in pain, in confusion, and God heard our cries and listened and weeped with us. When Job lost his children, land, livestock, and servants he said in chapter 13, “though He slay me, I will hope in Him; yet I will argue my ways to His face” (Job 13:15). Job understood what it meant to lament. Even though God allowed for these losses to happen, he continued to put his hope in Him and cried out to God in his confusion.
Lamenting is a prayer of crying out to God to seek peace and understanding in the midst of suffering. We see it practiced in both the Old Testament and New. In Psalms 42 David laments as he is facing persecution. He questions whether God has forsaken him, yet still he places his hope in Him as he seeks to understand.
Jesus also models lamenting as he weeps over the loss of his dear friend Lazarus. Even though He knew all things and knew that He would raise Lazarus from his grave on the fourth day, he wept with his friends over the tragedy of death.
We are meant to weep. We are meant to grieve losses of lives, of jobs, of friendships, of seasons of life and so much more. We are meant to long for God’s kingdom to come and for all things to be restored. We are meant to take time to cry out to God and seek for His peace and understanding. God doesn’t ask for us to ignore the hard circumstances in our life and to just be happy. He gives us the opportunity to lament, crying out to Him as He listens and responds.
Wherever you find yourself today, whether you lament over things of the past or things of the present, take your questions to the Lord. Ask Him for peace and understanding and know that He hears you and sees you and He is making all things new.
