Listening through Lament

We listen best in silence. But sometimes we can’t reach stillness. The noise in our own hearts is too great. The longings, the fears, the disappointments, the anger overwhelm our ability to rest. How then do we listen? In these times, we listen through lament. Then it is through our own crying out that we most clearly hear and share the pain in the heart of God.

In our culture that seeks to drown pain and reaches for pleasure at all costs, we miss hearing the somber tones in the heartbeat of God. Certainly His heart beats the bright tones of joy and the soft tones of peace and the strong tones of love. But joy is borne of sorrow, and love hurts, and the heart of God also beats the deep tones of lament.

“Rejected by His people, hounded by a hopeless sense of separation from the ones He loved the most - the Lord shared these feelings with His young shepherd king. David would lament them again and again to God, as God would lament them through David. Lament became a bridge between them. They would cross it again and again in their loneliness and find each other.” (Michael Card, A Sacred Sorrow, p. 68)

In lament, we hear and share the pain in the heart of God. The pain of separation. The longing for presence and oneness. We affirm with God that this is not how things should be. When we deny ourselves permission to lament, we cut ourselves off not only from our own hearts, and from those around us, but also from the heart of God.

As we lament our sin, declaring our inability to repair the problems in us and around us, the kingdom of God comes near. Sorrow breaks through into praise. The One who himself laments disrupted relationship draws near to comfort and restore. And we hear the Heartbeat that speaks the final Word of Love.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” (Matthew 5: 3-4)

The Choosing to Feel

God,
sometimes it feels so hard
it seems that all our love
all our attempts to help
are rebuffed

Sometimes I wonder
why do we even bother?

Wouldn’t it be easier
to close our eyes to the pain
to choose not to see
not to love
and thus not to feel the hurt ourselves?

• • • • •

It started well                                                                                  Gen 1
pure love
complete intimacy
perfection

delight in creating
satisfaction in the created
“It is good”                                                                                     Gen 1:31

desire                                                                                             Gen 1:26
to share the enjoyment

then . . .

loneliness as you looked for your friends?                                        Gen 3:8-9
hurt at their hiding from you. . .
at the maligning of your motives?                                                     Gen 3:2-5

grief at the so-rapid destruction of your joyfully created beauty?
anger at the Evil that had done this. . .                                              Gen 3:14
the twisting of your words. . .
the deceit?

the murder of one you loved                                                            Gen 4:4, 10
rising violence and wickedness until
only evil, evil, evil
evil thoughts, evil actions                                                                  Gen 6:5

and for you
as you watched
deeper and deeper grief
intolerable pain                                                                                Gen 6:6

the decision to extinguish                                                                  Gen 6:7
all of your ruined creation
to wipe out
the evil
and hence the pain

• • • • •

Another decision
a choice                                                                                           Gen 9:9-17
a promise

the decision to never again
so completely destroy
even ruined creation

the choice to feel
to love

the promise to continue in relationship
despite the risk of pain

• • • • •

too soon
more desperate hurt
a vying for your place                                                                       Gen 11:4

again a choice
a promise
not only to keep loving
but to bless                                                                                      Gen 12:3
all nations

All.

All those you had just scattered in punishment                                   Gen 11:6-9
and protection

• • • • •

Love
tenderness                                                                                        Is 63:15
yearning                                                                                           Jer 31:20

hurt
grief                                                                                                  Jer 3:19-20
anger                                                                                                Ps 95:10
                                                                                                        Deut 32:19
longing                                                                                              Is 30:18

rejection                                                                                            Deut 32:15-18
as time and again                                                                               Is 53:3
those you loved so passionately
those you chose
also chose . . .

a lifeless, worthless substitute                                                             Jer 2:11-13
over the living, life-giving You

Again and again
a choice
to keep feeling
keep loving
the love and the pain
inseparable

“What can I do with you?”                                                               Hos 6:4
. . . yet “How I can I give you up?”                                                   Hos 11:8

“And he could bear Israel’s misery no longer”                                   Judg 10:16
“His heart was filled with pain”                                                          Gen 6:6
“Enough!”                                                                                         2 Sam 24:16

So often seemingly too much to bear
. . . yet
. . . the choice

Again and again
judgement

but always too a reaffirmation
of the choice

to keep feeling
to keep loving
to open yourself to the certainty of more pain
more tears

Indescribable grief                                                                             Matt 26:38
desertion                                                                                           Matt 27:46
rejection                                                                                            Matt 27:22
intolerable pain                                                                                  Luke 22:44
alone in your death.

• • • • •

“Take up your cross”                                                                         Matt 16:24
that instrument of pain

The same choice

To follow me                                                                                     John 15:12-13
you must choose to feel
the pain that comes with loving

There is no other way.                                                                       Luke 14:27
 

When you feel defective. . .

I am brought up short by the question of Psalm 139, “Do you think of yourself as God’s artwork, his masterpiece?”

All too often I criticize myself for lack of energy, for inability to respond quickly and fluently, for. . . just about anything. I see myself as defective, not “wonderfully made.”

Why, Abba?

Have I been brainwashed by the world which values physical beauty and productivity, riches and small talk and ability to think quickly and work intensely more than relationship and stillness and joy? Do I, like the world, fear limitation and equate weakness with deficiency, failing to see from the perspective of the cross?

Is there a part of me that sees myself as self-made? “Yes, life is a gift, but I have also achieved through hard work and self-discipline.” . . . And then when the results don’t match the world’s standards, do I suffer the cracking of pride, feeling ashamed because I have failed in my self-creation project?

To live in sync with who we truly are means to recognize that we are dependent on God for our very breath and are graced with many good things; it means to be grateful to the giver and attentive to the purpose for which the gifts are given. (Miroslav Volf, “Free of Charge,” p. 36)

It means to recognize that the details of each personality are hand-chosen, gently woven with ultimate wisdom and tender care into the depths of our souls.

So, on this Multitude Monday, I’m celebrating the gifts of personality, those gifts placed deep into each by loving hands.

I’m celebrating my extrovert sister who connects easily and gives extravagantly and can hold many people in her heart and make each feel special by her way of celebrating them.

I’m celebrating a friend’s clear view of concrete reality, her common sense and quick action that gets things done.

And I’m enjoying the hidden treasures of introversion, the stillness that likes space and hates rush, that treasures “richness” over “muchness,” that sees beyond what is to what might be.

God knew we need both. We need extroversion to keep us connected, to help us celebrate and feast and enjoy life’s extravagance that God pours upon us. And we need introversion to help us appreciate the depth of the hidden reality into which we’re invited, to be able to hold ideas and let them grow and develop until they are ready to be born. Each of us is a different blend of the two. And each expresses a small part of God’s nature that encompasses all.

 

All is gift. My friend’s ability to fearlessly pick up the phone and get things done is gift. My comfort with silence is gift.

There is freedom in receiving all as gift. For when all is gift, I can appreciate the beauty in myself without pride. It is nothing I have done, nothing I have earned. It is sheer gift. I discover myself free to love the beauty in someone else without comparisons. I can admire my sister’s ability to speak freely, and I can accept my own struggle to find words, recognizing that too as part of the gift, the gift that calls me to listen and think and answer from the place of stillness.

Listen. When you hear that critical voice, see if you can also hear the voice of the Father reminding you that he likes the way he made you.




Today I'm writing in community. If you would like to read other thoughts on the endless gifts, click on the button above.

Unveiled

And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:18, NIV)


Veiled

Sheltered

Hidden

from searching gaze

But unable
to connect
to share the hope
and healing of beauty

to offer the gentle strength

we all need

Isolated

Safe
And ineffective.

• • • • •

Unveiled
Life revealed
Glory manifest
Strength shared

Pressure to wear the veil
to hide

But You have torn it
the veil separating us from You
and You in us from each other

You have unveiled us forever
exposing for all to see
our transformation
the growth of Your glory in us.

Oh, let me not veil myself again!