In Praise of Lament

I came to the end of my devotional time, to the question that had stared back at me every day for weeks. “What weighs heavily on your heart today? Bring your concerns to God and list them one by one.” I couldn’t help the sigh, nor the feeling of heaviness that settled in my chest. It was the same list I’d been bringing Him every morning for weeks. Months. Maybe even years.

“Do I really need to list them again, Father? You know all of it.”

I’d prayed over every one of them, sometimes with tears in my eyes, sometimes on my hands and knees. I’d done my best to hand them over to God, to trust Him, to find my hope and peace in Him.

And yet, in all of those areas, nothing had changed. My heart ached and my shoulders felt weighed down, and I just couldn’t muster the hope I somehow suspected I needed.

Recently, my daughter asked for my help with an art project. She’d painted some canvasses and wanted me to write out Bible verses “in your fancy writing.” As I got partway through the second canvas, I called her over to where I was sitting. I pointed at the verse I was copying out, a passage of lament and heartache.

“But I cry to You for help, Lord, in the morning my prayer comes before You. Why, Lord, do You reject me and hide Your face from me? From my youth, I have suffered… I have borne terrors and am in despair. Your wrath has swept over me; Your terrors have destroyed me. All day long they surround me like a flood… You have taken me from friend and neighbor–darkness is my closest friend.” (Psalm 88:13-18)

“Are you sure you want to end it here?” I asked. “Most psalms go on. They end on a note of hope. Don’t you want that part too?”

She shook her head firmly. Then she told me that, on a night when she was especially struggling and feeling alone, she’d stumbled on this passage–specifically this part of the passage.

Understanding dawned.

“You felt seen,” I said. She nodded.

If you know my daughter’s story, you’ll know that the teen years have been particularly difficult years for her. Between mental health challenges, physical challenges, and just the general upheaval of adolescence (especially as a teen girl), these years have been filled with hard days. She’s come through so much, and is living through more still. I, in my Polyanna-ish way, have often tried to point her to the light, to the hope at the end of the dark tunnel. I don’t regret that, but her decision to write these words–only these words–gave me pause.

As a follower of Christ, I know there is hope. I know He works all things for our good. I know every song of lament ends with praise. But I wonder, sometimes, if I’m too quick to rush to the end. If I don’t allow myself, give myself permission, to linger in the lament.

Out of curiosity, I searched to see how many of the Psalms are about lament. The number is surprising: between sixty and sixty-five individual Psalms! Lament makes up the largest topic in the book. And while it always ends on a note of hope, the author(s) of those psalms don’t rush to it. They linger in the sorrow. They give full vent to the despair, the desperation. They cry out to God and rail against His silence and apparent inactivity.

They allow themselves to live in the broken, messy, painful unfinished places–and to give them language.

As a writer, I know the value of a well-written darkest night (even knowing the relief that comes with the next morning). I know not to rush the emotion, but to stretch it out. To let my readers feel the full weight of it. To let the hurt and the unknown linger enough to feel real.

And yet, in my own life, I rush to platitudes. To hopeful endings. I chafe against the prolonged seasons of lament and sorrow and unresolved hurt.

I’m not proposing that we forego praise, or that we dismiss hope. We need them both. But I wonder whether we also need the lament. To sit with our pain and let it do its own work. To find words to express our deepest anguish, and let them linger on our lips. To give ourselves permission to feel all of it, even the parts that hurt.

In keeping with the theme of this post, I don’t have a tidy wrap-up. I don’t have inspiring words of comfort and hope. But if, like me, You’ve grown weary of sitting in the hurt; if you’re feeling pressured to rush to the end of the psalm and the lightness it brings; if you feel guilty that you can’t seem to find the silver lining… Maybe that’s okay. Maybe we can give ourselves permission to spend our emotion in the lament of the psalm–knowing the ending is coming, but not rushing it. Maybe it’s all right to just sit here and wait, without feeling the need to resolve it all neatly.

That’s what I’ll be doing on this rainy Wednesday. And somehow, I think it may be what my heart needs most.

Post-note: After writing this today, a friend reached out and pointed out that Psalm 88, specifically, is different from many Psalms. The quote above is where the passage ends: raw, unfinished, unresolved. And somehow that, in itself, feels like a gift. An invitation into a space that doesn’t have to be neatly tied up with clean bandages, but rather one where we can sit with our whole, real selves, and be honest with God. One where the psalm of our lives for today is free to end in the lament, knowing tomorrow’s psalm may be different, but not rushing past. I hope you feel the grace and freedom of that invitation today, wherever you sit.