I’ve been told multiple times in grief that praying the Psalms helps. They give words to every human experience. Did you know that over 1/3 of the Psalms are laments? I didn’t. I must admit, I didn’t know what “praying the Psalms” would look like. It sounded too Christian-ese, too much the “right thing to do”. Sometimes I have a problem trying to be so original, so unique, so unlike others that I don’t want to do what someone tells me to do. It’s a trait of those with my Enneagram number: The Four. We believe we are different from anyone else. However, one of the things Fours need to remember is that every human being is also unique, and we are just as human as the next person.

This week I decided to open up Psalms. I had already started writing a song based on some laments in Scripture, since there seems to be an abundant amount of songs of praise but not nearly enough songs of lament in our church culture. Psalm 77 and Psalm 6 is where I landed. And two minutes in, I was sobbing and incredibly thankful for these honest, brave, real, strong lamenters.

Two and a half months in, the pain is real and the struggle is real. I’ve been single parenting for the last ten days while my husband is out of the country. With lots of help, of course. What this has given me, among other things, is time alone at night. The days have been full, even though we’ve scaled things down to match my reduced capacity. I’ve found moments of laughter, breaks in the ache of grief. Then every night, without fail, as soon as the kids were in bed and I was alone, the tears started flowing. It was as if my companion (we’ll call her Grief) was waiting for me to be alone, tiptoed up to me and said gently, “It’s my turn now.” Every night I hoped she would not call, but she has. She still walks with me every day. I suppose that is growth in me, that I am no longer resisting her presence, even though I’m not throwing her a welcome party. She has things to do in my life, and I know I need her. Yet the continual ache and ongoing pain, sometimes so sharp all I can do is sob, feels like more than I can bear. As C.S. Lewis said in A Grief Observed, I need a drug for the pain. I suppose this is where addictions begin: to sugar, alcohol, drugs, TV social media, porn, relationships, sex, you name it. Anything to help the pain, anything for some relief.

It’s tempting to reach for those things. Very tempting. So as I’m reading the Psalms from this perspective of the amputation of my mom from my life, I found fellow sufferers in these pages. I found confirmation, yet again, that these feelings of anguish and experiences of them are not sinful or signs of weak faith, but human responses. Here are some examples.

“My soul refuses to be comforted” (Psalm 77:2).

This is so true. While I have moments of comfort, nothing actually brings lasting comfort. Nothing “works”. Temporary comforts come in many forms, but the pain comes back without fail. I live with a heart that feels like it bleeds out continuously. So unless I am willing to dive into an addiction of a good thing in order to keep numbing myself (which is always tempting, but which I am also not willing to do), I must agree with this Psalmist and say along with him, “My soul refuses to be comforted.”

“Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am languishing; heal me, O LORD, for my bones are troubled” (Psalm 6:2).

My flesh is literally weak. I stared death in the face, watched it take away my youthful, active mom, and was reminded of how fleeting health and life is. On top of that, my body is weak. If I don’t take a walk a day, I feel panicky and the stress weighs much too heavily to bear. I cannot keep up with my text messages like I used to. I need more sleep. The brain fog continues. It took me five days to recover from one church picnic last Sunday afternoon. My kids are learning their new mom can’t do what she used to. Energy is low. My immune system is suppressed, and I’m in contact with my doctors to deal with health issues that have come up. When I spoke with another bereaved caregiver recently, she reminded me that it took her months for her body to realize that there wasn’t something urgent or pressing to do. I immediately related. I lived that way for six months, and I still live with this sense of urgency, of crisis, even though nothing in my life is currently on fire. My flesh is weak. So I join the psalmist in crying out to God with my troubled bones.

“I am weary with my moaning, every night I flood my bed with tears” (Psalm 6:6).

Yep. That’s me, too. The last ten days, Grief tended to wait until the kids were in bed and I was alone. She’s not always that considerate. The bathroom stall at the zoo, Sunday mornings in church service, on my walks, taking out the garbage, in a conversation, smelling a rose, hugging my child. These are all moments & places when I’ve felt the tug of grief, saying, “It’s time to mourn again”. So I cry. The tears flow. Tasks can keep the pain at bay for awhile, but they cannot remove the pain. There is nothing else to do sometimes but weep. And yes, it is wearying.

As these Psalms have helped me grieve this loss, know that I am not alone, crazy or sinful for feeling this way, they have also brought comfort. When I read Psalm 6:8-9, a new kind of tears came. These were tears of being heard, of being known, of being in someone’s heart and presence in a way where you know they are with you, they are feeling it with you, they are holding you together while you fall apart, they are strong while you are weak, yet unafraid to break with you.

“Depart from me, all you workers of evil,
    for the Lord has heard the sound of my weeping.
The Lord has heard my plea;
    the Lord accepts my prayer.”

The Lord has heard me. That made all the difference to me. You know that experience when you’re a child, and you KNOW you are right about something, but you need your authority figure to agree to make it official? You need a witness? You need confirmation? This is my confirmation from God my Father. He has heard every instance of weeping. He was in the zoo bathroom stall with me while I fell apart. He tunes in to every ache. He’s there. He is listening, he is with me, and he is answering. I don’t know a greater comfort in the pain than this. My true comfort is coming when my King shows up on a white horse to finish what he started. I know the aching continues until then. And so does his presence with me through every moment. This is a sure footing that helps me more than sex, food, relationships, another TV show, reading……you name it.

I am a humbled Four who learned that I need the Psalms just like everyone else. Thank you, God.

I read somewhere that sorrow and suffering are good teachers. They are not the electives we tend to choose, but at some point or another, we are all enrolled in their classes. Eccesiastes 7:4 says, “The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.” More evidence that sorrow and suffering bring more with them than pain. While listening to more of C.S. Lewis’ “A Grief Observed,” he quoted Matthew 5:4, where Jesus says, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” Like Lewis, I can hear Matthew 5:4 and remember acquiescing to its truth, or even teaching it, before I was plunged into the pool of grief myself. It didn’t hit me then like it hits me now. I certainly read Ecclesiastes before, but I didn’t take it to heart and seek to be in a house of mourning. What is the point of that? I preferred mirth, laughter, and ease.

My childhood was not an easy one for many reasons. Nor has my adult life been easy. It’s very much a mixed bag; joyful and beautiful alongside painful and ugly. Yet as I look back from my current vantage point, I see those twin teachers present. And while I certainly took a few plunges into the shallow end of the pool, I have spent much time and energy running the opposite direction. Ditching class. Believing I know better. Trying to control exactly how much pain I should feel, if pain is unavoidable and I have to feel it.

Mom’s cancer diagnosis, suffering, and finally her death put me in the deep end. Sorrow and suffering didn’t stop to ask me if now was a good time. It just happened. It just was. And now it is, and it isn’t going away. Thanks to a dear friend, and a book called “Beyond the Darkness” by Clarissa Moll, I am now coming to see that the grief I am feeling is one of my new lifelong companions. It’s not an injury I will recover from. It does not have a shelf life. It will not eventually leave. It will morph and change, as I do, of course, but it is with me for life. It’s my new companion. I cannot yet call it my friend, but perhaps I will eventually get there.

You see, I don’t like my new companion. I don’t like her at all. She’s demanding. She takes most of my energy. She cries a lot. At the most inconvenient times. She doesn’t play by our society’s rules. She does not have a regular schedule. She can keep me up at night or make me fall asleep in the middle of the day. She’s taken away my appetite at times, yet she’ll also make me crave unhealthy foods. She changes my relationships, because other people see she’s next to me, and they react accordingly. She’s intrusive, ever present, and someone I never would have invited into my life. I don’t like her at all.

And.

And I’m learning she is a gift. She has a lot to offer. I don’t even know a quarter of it, I’m sure, and I already see this. Because as soon as I stopped running from her and started listening, I heard wisdom. I felt pain, too, searing pain of the chasm separating Mom from me. Strangely enough, I started seeing that pain as a gift in itself. It’s love for Mom that causes me to feel this grief. It’s one side of the double-edged sword of suffering: the side of Genesis 1-2 and the end of Revelation, the side which screams out that life is not supposed to be this way, and it will not always be this way. It’s the aching for Jesus to make it right again, for all eternity. It’s a holy ache, because it’s one that Jesus knows intimately. It’s God’s heart, too. I understand now that sharing in Christ’s sufferings includes holding grief’s hand when it enters your life, as it has entered mine.

So what wisdom have I heard? I’m glad I asked. My brain is still a sieve these days. I still have trouble completing sentences. I am very forgetful now, and need continual reminders of things I used to be able to mentally hold. This is one of the reasons I write. I write to remember. I write to process, and I also write to learn. I often read my writings back, and learn from them.

One thing I have learned is what the writer of Isaiah meant when he said Jesus was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief (Isaiah 53:3). Clarissa Moll pointed out that it could also be translated that Jesus was a “familiar friend” with grief. Hmm. Familiar friend. They were close. This means I am in good company, as I stop running away with distractions, take a breath, and begin a true acquaintance with grief. I’m learning that welcoming grief instead of running from her is walking in Jesus’ footsteps. It’s an joining in God’s lament against sin and longing for full restoration. It’s the ache that things aren’t as they should be.

I’ve learned how illiterate I am in lament. The churches I have been part of never taught or modeled how to handle grief, or how Jesus did. Funny how we can talk so much about some things but have blinders on in others. Mine were stripped from me this last year. Once in the pool of grief, it didn’t take long to see how the church shies away from following in Jesus’ footsteps in this regard. We see his sufferings as necessary, dwell on them for Good Friday services, perhaps, or when we talk about sin, but do not follow him to the extent of calling grief our familiar friend. We sing positive songs, pray for positive outcomes, and have little to no vocabulary to lament and grieve. One of the ways we need to grow in Jesus’ likeness. However, God has given me fellow lamenters in my current church, who have been a lifeline in this hurricane.

Other lessons I am learning is what truly matters and what doesn’t. Death brings life into focus, sharply and succinctly. I see how unimportant and insignificant things are, things that used to grab my attention. For example: caring what other people think of me, or my fear of trying new things. I’m rethinking how I parent our children, seeing more gaps in what I believe vs. what I actually do. Instead of wanting to be entertained in my free time, I have a burning desire to be useful. To create instead of consume. Life is so fleeting, so short, a drop in a very large bucket. I want to make my drop count. Whether I like grief or not, she is changing me in ways I’ve asked for. I just didn’t want the lessons to come through her.

You see, I have a confession to make. I studied suffering and God’s reasons for it pretty regularly in my 20s and 30s. It was a disturbing thing to try and hold: if God loves me, why does he allow _________? I read books, underlined verses that mentioned suffering and purpose, listened to sermons. I wanted to know the answer to the all-famous question: WHY??

Thanks to grief, I realize now what was going on in my heart. I figured if I could understand even some of the answer of why, if I studied enough about suffering, then when the big storms of life hit, I would be able to meet them with calm and composure. I would be able to say when my loved one dies, “The LORD gives and the LORD takes away. Blessed be the name of the LORD.” I wanted to be like Job, just without the sackcloth and chapters of lament. I didn’t want to feel as if the bottom was dropping out of life. I didn’t want to be rocked to my core with pain. I thought that would show that I did indeed have a strong faith in God.

How wrong I was. I didn’t understand how much strength and faith it takes to 1. feel your pain to the capacity you are able, and 2. to cry out to God honestly with your anger, questions, doubts and terrible pain. The mark of a strong faith during times of difficulty is lament, not stoicism or emotionless acceptance. God keeps leading me to feel my pain, not avoid it. And when I do, it is there where he meets me, helps me and grows me in ways I could never have experienced had I continued to rely on myself or tried to numb the pain away. Trust in him is revealed through hardship. As I have learned, if you do not trust him, you will not cry out to him.

Yes, grief is my new steady companion, whether I like her or not. Though she’s not my favorite, I do like what she’s doing in me. And I am not alone. There is another steady companion with me, who knows grief well and will walk with me until there is no more pain. His words in Matthew 5:4 hit home this week. I’m blessed because I mourn. While I am incapacitated by my grief to sing, teach or lead in the ways I have in the past, God does not see me as useless or wasteful. No, indeed. I am blessed. Comfort is coming, and it will be all the sweeter for those who are strong enough to break. I am sharing in Jesus’ sufferings. God help me.

Another day. Today I took another load home from Mom’s apartment. Relatively non-emotional things, like household cleaner and a garbage can. Finding a home for each new thing in our house often proves too much for me, however, and the bags line our hallway until I or someone else in our family has the energy to put things away.

It’s chaotic. It’s different. Those who said me moving back home now that Mom has died would be a returning to normal couldn’t have been farther from reality. It’s not normal. Nothing is normal. Our old life is in the past, and things have changed. We’re still caught in the ripple effects of Mom’s death, like a pebble being churned up by the incoming waves of the ocean over and over and over. None of us have settled. Every rhythm we had is gone, and life is too unpredictable to create many new rhythms yet.

It breaks my heart that I cannot be who I want to be. Last night, my daughter was perky and bright-eyed, eager to talk to me about what was going on in her world. I, however, was spent. Grief sucks the energy from you better than a full family of four children. I had lost all capacity to listen or be present with her, and I had to look her in the eye and say, “Honey, I’m so sorry, I want to listen to you, but I can’t. I don’t have anything left. I need some down time where I’m not doing anything.” And she nodded, didn’t appear to be hurt, and went downstairs. My spirit wanted to listen to her, and my flesh was weak and couldn’t. I’m more limited than I was before Mom was sick. My sweet kids run into these limits every day, and it breaks my heart afresh each time I can’t be the mom I want to be.

I don’t know how to answer, “How are you?”. There are no good responses that are both honest and respectful to the unwitting person who just stepped on the landmine of my broken heart, or the well-intentioned individual who doesn’t know what to do with a grieving person. It’s a terrible place to be put, actually. I don’t want to be asked how I am, and I do. I don’t want to be around people, and I do. Another example of not knowing which end is up. Like C.S. Lewis said in A Grief Observed, if only I could be around people and have them not talk to me. I dread being alone, as the feelings soar in to be my constant companion, yet I don’t have the energy to engage in conversation. Sometimes I can barely finish a sentence, and often the words get jumbled. Part of the brain fog of grief.

The weight of grief is real. It sucks the life out of you. I rarely have the energy to move. I do things because I know they are good for me, but even then, I have limits. Yet if people look at me from the outside, I seem fine. If only grief could be observed outwardly. If I wore a cast and limped, people would obviously understand my limits and I wouldn’t be faced with explaining why I can’t do such-and-such a thing, or refraining from explaining, and living with that weight of not being understood. If they could look inside me, they would see the carnage and perhaps leave me be. My body feels like it’s betrayed my mind. They are interconnected, yet out of sync with each other. Not to mention my soul. I can’t tell which end is up.

At times I am enjoying my beautiful family. Then while I’m doing so, out of the blue with no warning comes a feeling of complete disconnect from them. They are laughing at something beautiful or funny, and in that onrush of disconnect, I feel as if I cannot relate to them at all. My heart is reminded that it is broken, and that life is dangerous. Life hurts, and these beautiful moments can turn to ugly and painful ones at the drop of a hat. No warning, no asking you for permission. At times, if I dwell on it, the fact that beautiful can turn to ugly on a dime scares me deeply. I shrink from living, and yet I don’t want to shrink. I know it’s better to love than not to love, but the other side of love is loss and terrible pain. No one can love without also experiencing the loss of someone you love deeply. And part of me still wants to avoid that type of wrenching. Of separation.

I never really related with Christians who said the worst part of Jesus’ time on the cross (and beforehand as well) was his separation from his father. The bloody torture and slow suffocation seemed worse to me. Then all of a sudden, driving home from another tap class today, when Mom wasn’t there, and I couldn’t talk with her in the parking lot like we usually would, it hit me. This separation from Mom because of her death is the most painful thing I have experienced in my life thus far. It hurts more than I ever believed possible. There are days I don’t feel like I can go on, and days I don’t want to. Death isn’t natural. Death isn’t God’s good design. Death is ripping, searing pain. It’s separating you from someone you love, and this side of heaven, there is no cure. There is no removal of that sting. It’s very much present. And anyone who has not yet had a loved one ripped from their lives does not understand this yet. But they will.

I digress. As I realized this separation from Mom hurts so much because I love her, I also realized that Jesus knows how I feel. Experientially. He lost his father. He was separated from God. He knows not just the separation of a child from a parent, but the ripping, searing pain of losing God. He cried out in the midst of it, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” from Psalm 22. He knows. That does not make my pain any less. That does not make this grief ease. That does not make me smile and say, like so many Christians seem to think I need to say, “It’s all right. God is good.” It frees me to cry out in my anguish to God, too. It frees me to grieve. It brings my heart awe that I am not alone. That Jesus would be willing to suffer a greater pain than I’ll ever know.

I can’t fathom things being more painful than they are now, except when I consider losing my husband or kids. Now I live in the understanding that such a dreaded event could actually happen. The blinders that I deserve a long marriage, that I deserve to watch my kids grow up, that I should be able to see grandchildren, that I am somehow “due” these things just because I am alive, are gone. That’s all been stripped away. No where did God promise any of those things. No where did he say I am due these things. I have fooled myself in believing that I do. I have listened to other voices besides his. I am not promised a horror-free life. I am promised a painful one. With Jesus with me through all of it. Each valley, each mountaintop. At least I never have to lose God’s presence. It is a remarkable thing that we know his presence most closely in the darkest of times.

It’s scary to be this honest. I feel like I’m going crazy, and if I were to share, that others would confirm my loss of sanity. Listening to C.S. Lewis today helped me realize that this is not insanity, but deep grief. And when we put words to it, it helps others know they are not alone. Today I felt a deep connection to someone who died when my mom was three years old. We have never met, yet his honesty through his journey of losing his wife to cancer has already deeply helped me. Go figure. I wonder if either of us would trade the lessons learned and the help given for our loved one back. I don’t know. One of the many questions without answers that have been coming to mind.

I’m writing this post with tears in my eyes. It’s 8 weeks this Thursday since Mom died. Life is still a whirlwind of grief, emotions, shock, pain, numbness, peace, laughter and agony. There is no normal for me or my family as of yet. So many things to do, so many things to feel, so many limitations. I’ll save “how I am” for a separate post, but to speak quickly to it, I am exhausted, hurting and grieving.

The focus for me after Mom’s funeral has been 1. to get on top her financial situation as her executor, and 2. empty out her apartment by the middle of July, when her lease is up. I knew I could have put all her belongings in storage and put it off, but I preferred to attack it now and get it done, with much help from some amazing friends. Thankfully, it’s almost done. There’s a whole other post in the “how I am” about what it’s been like to do such a horrible job at such a horrible time. For now, this time in her apartment, with her things, her smell, her journals, everything she left behind, has forced me to continue grieving. I understand why people put this task off after a loved one’s death, sometimes for years. It’s indescribably hard.

As I’ve been going through this the last 6 weeks, I’ve also been able to attend church again. I have not been attending since Mom’s surgery, save for a couple weeks when I had respite from caregiving. Both my husband and I were very involved in serving at our church, but since Mom got sick, we stepped out of our roles in order to care for her and our family. Ever since I have come back to Sunday mornings, things are different. I am different. I am no longer playing piano, teaching, leading a class, or serving in any capacity. I am just there. It’s quite a shift for me. And every Sunday, without fail so far, Sunday mornings are by far the time I cry the most during the week. While I have lots of memories of Mom in that building, it’s not just her memories that bring the tears. It’s being in the presence of God with other people who know and love him, too. It stirs my heart in a very different way than my times with God at home. Outward evidence, perhaps, of the fact that Christians are saved into a family. We were not meant to be alone. Thank you to my Jesus family for the hugs, the prayers, the tears cried with me, the ways you have loved me and helped carry me.

This uncontrollable crying on Sundays has made me very uncomfortable. I often feel like the only one who’s using up 6 tissues each week. Being told to stand and greet each other just adds to the awkwardness, as I don’t mind being honest about why I’m a blubbering mess, but there is no good way to be present with someone in a grieving state in one minute or less. We are told to come as we are, however, and I am coming as I am. Broken-hearted. I am not bringing my gifts to the church. I’m bringing my grief and sorrow.

While I know that’s okay, and it’s exactly what God wants me to do, it’s not normal for our church culture. I am very aware of standing out, and not just because I’m outwardly crying. Hurting people who prefer to privately grieve, or express it in different ways than copious tears, are also present on Sundays. And it begs the question:

What do we do with our grief as the church?

Maybe it’s not the pain losing a loved one. It could be disappointment over a lost opportunity, life not going the way it should have gone, unwanted singleness, the wayward child, chronic pain. Fill in the blank. At some point, all of us have tasted the twisted nature of life. Things are not as they should be, and when that happens, it hurts. What do we do when it hurts?

I am not the one to write a book on this subject. I’m busy reading them, because I was never taught well what to do with my grief. Thanks to friends who have been walking through this longer than I have, I am reading and using resources like Dark Waters, Deep Mercy by Mark Vroegop, Walking with God Through Pain and Suffering by Tim Keller, A Sacred Sorrow by Michael Card, and a four-part series on loss of a loved one by Kenneth C. Haugk. I’m looking to join a Grief Share group in the fall to pursue it further. But I ask this question about what we do with our grief as the church because right now, we don’t know how to deal with it well.

Christian radio teaches me to always be positive. Quote those Bible verses, find the silver lining in your situation, sing minor key lyrics in a major key (one of my biggest pet peeves as a musician), and just remember how good God is! Even when your daughter has died, or your mom has incurable cancer, keep up the positive outlook. Since we know the end of the story, and everything will be okay, there’s no room for your grief.

Church teaches me that grief is a place of limbo. There really is no landing place for a person in grief. As a leader, I am welcome back when I am functional. When I can serve again. The implied messages are: “You’re welcome to come, but you can’t really do anything useful for us until you can teach a class again, or serve on the worship team, or teach in kids’ ministry. Let us know when you’re done grieving.” It’s as if we don’t know what to do with deeply hurting people. Give them space. Where is their space? I say this, fully acknowledging that I have believed this and done this, in my ignorance and to my great sorrow.

Yet God is showing me through my walk with sorrow, that broken-hearted people are vital for the church. In fact, in my friend’s (and I will always think of him as my pastor), Buzz’s sermon on Psalm 13 last week, one of the things I realized is that me coming with only my grief is exactly what God has for me to do. That’s my service. That’s my contribution in this season. Why, you may ask? How does me coming with sorrow and tears serve or help anyone?

It images God.

Yes, that’s right. Our sorrow at the brokenness, twisted nature of creation, at death and decay and despair, reflects to the world who God is. It’s the reflection no one wants to show, but everyone desperately needs. Since we all experience this brokenness, we all need to know what on earth to do with it. More than that, we also need to know that God grieves the ruptured state of his creation. In particular does he grieve the lost and shattered state of his people, his image bearers.

Need proof, perhaps? You don’t have to read far in the Bible to see and hear God’s laments. I’ve mentioned John 11 in a previous post, when we see Jesus lamenting the death of his friend, Lazarus. But if we turn back to the Old Testament, it is everywhere. God regrets making man in Genesis. God grieves over his lost people in Exodus. God’s anger and sadness is visible as his people continually turn away from him in Judges. He grieves over Saul’s turning away in 1 Samuel. The prophets are full of his laments. Jesus himself laments over Jerusalem, echoing God’s heart through the years. God has strong emotions, probably stronger than any of us have ever felt. He is sovereign, and he grieves, as a father who hates watching his beloved child choose death over life. It breaks his heart (to borrow our vernacular).

God doesn’t respond to the horrors of sin and death with positivity. I believe it’s impossible for us to fully grasp this, but it’s essential to at least try to understand how he can be fully sovereign over every particle of his creation, using evil to accomplish his purpose, redeem and rescue (and one day restore) all of his creation through Jesus, AND fully grieve over the death of a sparrow. Often we try to understand him, and since his ways are unsearchable (Romans 11), when we reach a conundrum, we put him in a human box. I’ll use Christian radio as an example again. When we get that diagnosis no one wants, when that sweet child dies, when sin’s effect rears its ugly head, Christian radio tells us that all things work together for good. Or the DJ tells us that he/she has peace about the situation. They quote Bible verses all day long, but they are not verses of lament or sorrow. They are positively spun, Romans 8:28 style, misapplied to the grieving situation. I have yet to hear a K-Love verse of the day about lament, sorrow, or anger. No, God responds to the pain in his people and his creation with passionate emotion.

It’s not only Christian radio. I’ve heard that message from other Christian quarters. We are ill-equipped to handle grief in a God-honoring way. We are ill-educated on how God handles grief of his broken creation. And because of that, when you are thrust into grief or disappointment, you lack tools and a robust theology of God and suffering that help you actually turn to him. You have no place for your questions and doubts, your anger and fear, your anguish and numbness. You wonder if something is wrong with you, if you are not trusting God enough. You hear the positive worship songs and wonder where the songs of lament are. While the Psalms express their doubts, anger, fear, and questions directly to God, we don’t. And that’s deeply damaging to all of us.

We need grieving people in our church. We need to learn from them. We need them to show us what God is like in their grief. We need them to be weak, to question, to doubt, to be angry, to have great sorrow. Because we are, or have been, or will be that grieving person. And we have a God who is deeply acquainted with our grief. He shares it with us. He knows. He grieves, too. When we learn to lament, to bring those feelings and questions and cries to him, it’s the bridge that brings us to him. Without it, we set grieving people floundering. They have no way to reconcile the pain they experience with a God who either seems not to care or couldn’t do anything to stop it. They see him as powerful, but not emotive, or emotive, but not powerful, instead of the truth that God is all-powerful and knows our suffering intimately, and cares deeply enough to suffer himself. They need to know by experience that he draws near to them in their pain. No wonder so many hurting people leave the church. I understand it now. I wish I understood it before.

If you’re not the one currently grieving, you are needed, too. Not just in the ways you are gifted to serve, but with your presence. Along with the one who grieves, you image God when you learn to come alongside the broken-hearted. If he is the one who is near to them, your nearness to the broken-hearted is God’s presence to them.

Obviously not all of the Christian life is sung in a minor key. There are beautiful truths of God’s character in which we rejoice. There are astounding promises in which we trust. There is abundant hope to which we look forward. AND. And there are deep sorrows in which we lament. Imaging God also happens in the deepest valleys, not just the mountaintops.

So my service at present is coming broken. Living in sorrow and with my tears. Not only does my broken heart image God, my lament helps bring me toward him. I cannot thank those of you enough who have drawn near to me in my pain and been God’s presence to me. You help me feel safe when I fall apart on Sunday mornings. You help me draw close to God. Thank you.