So many things struck my soul today with their sadness…

A church organization hiding sin and protecting abusers.

A new mother who died and who I don’t even know, but whose story of worship and a life lived fully for Jesus impacted my heart.

A horrific school shooting that shatters my heart as a mom and a teacher.

And it’s simply too much.

     But I’m also reminded…

Forty percent of biblical psalms are psalms of lament. This isn’t because David and other writers were double-minded. This isn’t because 40 percent is wrong and the other 60 percent is what should be upheld. Instead, it’s the collision of two realities–this life and the kingdom of heaven. Grieving the brokenness of this life–all the reality of its fallenness and all the sadness it holds–at the feet of our Father isn’t just okay, it’s necessary. Because it’s there we find our ashes are turned to beauty, those who mourn find comfort and broken hearts are bound. If we don’t come with the lament, there can’t be an exchange.

     God gave us His word full of this language of “exchange”–there’s even a book of the bible dedicated to it. We can and should mourn the brokenness of man, the betrayals, the grief, even our own sin; and then, by the Spirit, be shown the hope to which we are called–death, though painful now, has been defeated; darkness, though prevalent now, will be no more; and even on this side of eternity “we will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the Living.” Psalm after psalm deals with the reality of this life but is then redirected into a higher reality–the truth of a good and faithful God who loves and saves and delivers and is our refuge and strength and a continual help when there is trouble in this life.

     I’m reminded of a Jesus who wept for and with a friend–he lamented the reality of this life and all its sorrows. This is a Jesus whose heart is gentle and so accessible and who begs us all to come. And it’s the song of this heart that draws us in…Come weary ones, come broken ones, come to me. Sing your songs of lament, but come and I’ll show you something even more true. Come cast all your cares on me, and you’ll find my love is bigger. Bring all your doubts and place them at my feet and you will find me to be faithful. I’ll make the wrong things right in time. I’ll make the sad things untrue. I’ve given it all to be bound with you.

     So tonight I lament. I mourn what isn’t right yet. But I’m doing it in the space where I can find a beautiful exchange–at the feet of my Jesus.

 

Psalm 42:6-11

My soul is downcast within me;

therefore I will remember you

from the land of the Jordan,

the heights of Hermon—from Mount Mizar.

Deep calls to deep

in the roar of your waterfalls;

all your waves and breakers

have swept over me.

By day the LORD directs his love,

at night his song is with me—

a prayer to the God of my life.

I say to God my Rock,

“Why have you forgotten me?

Why must I go about mourning,

oppressed by the enemy?”

My bones suffer mortal agony

as my foes taunt me,

saying to me all day long,

“Where is your God?”

Why, my soul, are you downcast?

Why so disturbed within me?

Put your hope in God,

for I will yet praise him,

my Savior and my God.

 

Rebekah is the daughter of Howard and Carolyn Loveland, she is a mother, and she teaches at a Christian School in Somerset, KY.