“As I learned this new language of lament, I realized that I should have learned it much earlier in my Christian life. Whether our burden is an illness, the loss of a relationship, the loss of a dream, or fear about the future, laments in Scripture give us a path for bringing our anxiety and confusion before the Almighty.”
“For my days pass away like smoke, and my bones burn like a furnace” (Psalm 102:3).
When my lips cried these words in a public prayer service, it felt like I was exposing a wound. I had just been diagnosed with a lethal, incurable cancer. My expected lifespan had been chopped by decades. The cancer had already burned through the inside of my bones—like a furnace.
Lament is bringing our grief and our protest before the Almighty when life doesn’t make sense.
Praying this Psalm of lament felt a bit like speaking a foreign language. As a young Christian, I had been taught that prayer consisted of ACTS: Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving and Supplication. I found that structure helpful, and I still do. But there’s something missing: lament. Lament is not confession, and it can’t be reduced to bringing our petitions and supplications before God. Lament is bringing our grief and our protest before the Almighty when life doesn’t make sense.
After my cancer diagnosis, I experienced a flood of emotions. Within a week, not just my emotional life but my body also was forced to adjust to changes through intensive chemotherapy treatment. People would ask, “how are you?” At any given moment, I was not sure. I was not the expert on how I was doing. Moreover, I didn’t always have the time to grieve, or the energy to bring anger before God.
But as I spent time praying through the Psalms, I noticed how many Psalms I had skipped over before: Psalms about enemies, about blaming God, about lamenting to God.
Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear; though war rise up against me, yet I will be confident (Psalm 27:3).
He has broken my strength in midcourse; he has shortened my days. ‘O my God,’ I say, ‘do not take me away at the midpoint of my life, you whose years endure throughout all generations’ (Psalm 102:8, 23-24).
I felt trapped by an enemy, something I never experienced so viscerally before my “war” on cancer. And deep down, I felt alienated and abandoned; the Psalmist dares to bring these before the Lord. The Psalmist trusts God’s sovereignty enough to even blame Him when His promises don’t seem to be coming true. “He has broken my strength midcourse.”
As I learned this new language of lament, I realized that I should have learned it much earlier in my Christian life. Whether our burden is an illness, the loss of a relationship, the loss of a dream, or fear about the future, laments in Scripture give us a path for bringing our anxiety and confusion before the Almighty.
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