Lament - The Song between pain and promise

Reflections on our need to lament, to accept the pain Covis 19  has caused in our lives and to our institutions and to acknowledge it before we move forward.

I think we all realise in  one way or another that nothing will ever be quite the same as it was, we also know that all things change and that the situations we deal with have an impact upon us, sometimes for good, sometimes not. But what of the things we inevitably will leave behind, what of the losses, what of the breaking down of some of those seemingly immovable  structures in our churches, in our  face to face interactions with each other, that perhaps we all thought would last in the same way, if not forever, at least for us.

And yet in the blink of an eye all that has gone and all it has taken to break down our illusions  of  a secure and certain world and our place in it was COVID 19.

We have to accept that things have changed, that what was, will  probably never fully return, and that we  need to help and support each other to acknowledge this, to mourn  and give voice to what is passing, before we go forward.

That is where the idea of Lament comes to our aid. Lament, the  prayer song we can sing between the pain of loss and the promise of what is to come. The prayer song we can sing to help ourselves and others come to terms with and process the sorrow, boredom, frustration and pain we feel.

Here are some thoughts from the book ‘Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy – Discovering the Grace of Lament’ by Mark Vroegop. Crossway 2019.The books purpose  is to encourage the reader to find deep mercy in dark clouds  and the title  is taken from these  two verses in Lamentations

“How the Lord in his anger has set the daughter of Zion under a cloud”  2:1

“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end” 3:22

 And Vroegop tells us that:

“Lament is how we bring our sorrow to God. Without lament we won’t know how to process pain. Silence bitterness and even anger can dominate our spiritual  lives instead ……

So Lament  is how we bring before God, our sorrow, our pain, our trauma, and our emotions, how we express our feelings of helplessness,  hopelessness, tiredness and disbelief. How in fact we deal the cloud that  is COVID 19, and  indeed with all the clouds that life throws at us. We do this by understanding that to lament in the biblical sense is to directly address our cries of pain and grief to God  as the Psalmist does in Psalm 22

“Do not be far from me, for trouble is near and there is no one to help’ Psalm 22:11

To make Lament is to release our pain and to tunnel our way to truth, because once we can mourn what is lost, and recognise and name the hurt and pain by taking our distress before the throne of God, and in trusting in God’s response, we can once more embrace the challenge and change of the future and whatever  may become our new normal.

“For we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (Rom 8:28)

I have been thinking about this very carefully and I love the idea of Lament being the song we sing between the pain and the promise.  It is a song of belief that we can sing in times of trouble. Lament is how we experience grace, no matter what we are called to face. So I want to make a suggestion for you to think about: We may wonder what we as a small church can do for our communities and friends, well perhaps, one of the most precious things what we have to offer a hurting people and a hurting world, is the healing song of Lament.