On Ash Wednesday, I enter the dim sanctuary to hear my beginning and ending declared:
“from dust you are, to dust you shall return.” (Gen. 3:19)
The rector marks my forehead with ashes. In the starkness, I mourn. I ache. I long. I grieve.
So begins Lent. Reminded of our mortality, we face our end and call to mind our beginning, the good gift of life given by God.
Lent’s long forty days carry us alongside the dusty path of Jesus’ temptation days in the desert, across the width and breadth of His public ministry, to the festivity of Palm Sunday, then through the harshness of Holy Week’s Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday. Eventually, we arrive at the glorious Easter Resurrection Day. We reflect on all the suffering Jesus endured for us. In turn, we consider suffering that is happening right here in the plum middle of all our life holds.
Lent is an odd season to engage in, for traditionally we dodge, as best we can, anything to do with pain and suffering, don’t we?
My Current Story of Grief
I’m creaky [and occasionally cranky] these days, amid recovery from necessary pain that follows hip replacement surgery. We endure pain to get relief from pain when we consent to procedures that promise less pain in the future. Even knowing all that is true about pain and its vital healing process, my mind still looks for ways to duck the physical pain. Initially, in the hospital, pain management addresses the yelps trauma induced. Then homeward and, for a while, homebound, I rest, ice, compress, and elevate, in regular rhythms to keep pain at bay.
Yet it is only in addressing and engaging with pain that pain has the possibility of dissipating. My body aches appropriately, whether I stay still, icing and elevating the area around my hip replacement incision, or whether I actively pursue healing through gentle exercises, short strolls, simple exercises, or attending physical therapy. [If you don’t believe in time travel, let me assure you it exists. The longest minute in the universe happens during PT when one minute lasts at least three hours accompanied by exquisite pain.]
Pain pummels us in a variety of manners. We experience its hot sting in all the realms of our being: physical, psychological, relational, intellectual, and spiritual. Pain and grief go together, don’t they? We ache for what is not as it should be. Sorrow surrounds us.
Your Story of Grief
What, then, holds us amid the longevity of pain and grief? Like a hiker moving upward on a trail bound for the summit of a steep peak, we get our bearings by orienting ourselves to the terrain and topography we traverse. While X might mark the spot where we currently reside, it’s not the spot we want to reach. We set our face and faith towards God.
We recall the truth of the resurrection, words spoken throughout the Bible. Because of this glorious truth, we then are those who grieve with hope. The hope, the truth, the reality, is that this world is not home. We are here on this earth temporarily, just for a while, and then we enter our true home, eternity with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There’ll be arms open wide welcoming us where we shall forever reside. We believe what God declares. There will come a day when “there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” and “all things will be made new.” (Rev. 21:4-5)
Nonetheless, on this earth, pain must be contended with in some way or another. The tendencies lie along two paths: we can either ignore the pain or obsess over the pain. God comes along and offers a better way. He comes as One who comforts while also providing the holy tool of lament. Lament opens the door to examine our pain and all its subsequent emotions with full permission to do so from God.
What is Lament?
Of the 150 Psalms, nearly half the Psalms contain lament. Whether communal or individual laments, they follow a pattern that gives us rhythms to raise our voices in the middle of our agony, to examine the pain, and to wrestle with the One who promised to be with us always.
Lament, expressing our sorrow and complaint to God, exists as a permitted language, one that feels quite unfamiliar. We don’t believe it’s allowed that we can question God, do we? Yet we only have to look at Jesus to see this is not forbidden. Watch Jesus model it from the cross, echoing Psalm 22:1 as He says, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
We hear the Psalmists bring questions to God: How long, O Lord? When? Where? Why? The veracity of our inquiry aligns with the depth of our distress. Yet we squirm, certain this certainly isn’t really permitted. Yet God doesn’t agree. He invites our raw, vulnerable words then He comes alongside as we confess how we spar in our heart towards the One we thought was kind and trustworthy.
We are invited to behold our grief, not stuff it up nor get stuck in it. God kindly offers an ear, a hand, a heart to hear our pain, our grief, our anger, our sorrow, and our wrestlings.
In lament, we address God, share the deep cry of our hearts, and register our complaints.
We get down to the nitty-gritty of life, no matter how big or small. In the middle of the land of Loss, Pain, Disappointment, Hard Moments, Deep Aches, Utter Weariness, these unrelenting places where we stumble on terrain that makes us ache, we get raw and vulnerable with God. We behold our grief. Then trusting that lament provides one way to encounter our grief, because we behold Who God is and because we behold our belovedness, with boldness, we tell it like it is.
“God, this is not as it should be!”
What we longed for, dissipated. Marriages disintegrate. Pregnancies miscarry. Friendships dissolve. Resources dry up. Dreams disappear. The flat tire happens on the same day the roof leaks and the promised promotion goes to another person instead. We feel we are in the Land of No Hope, wandering in the fog with no horizon. We are disoriented. We are upside down. We lie tattered and torn. We have not enough words and way too many words all at the same instant. Fatigue flattens. Isolation creates islands away from others. Sleep remains elusive.
The enemy of our soul gloats. He would like us to stay silent or stuck. He schemes, hoping we will succumb to the searing pain, the bitterness, the unforgiveness.
Trust the Lament Process
Yet even as we lament, we confess trust. We know Who You are, God. We can’t live without You. We are like Simon Petter who says, “Lord, to whom else shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One.” (John 6:68-69)
From the stance of trust even as we tremble, we behold our grief, and then we ask for rescue, for deliverance.
“Come, God. Come, now. I’m barely holding on. Look here. I’ve set my heart on You.”
From this place of petition, we wait and watch, and we see God move, sometimes ever so slowly. Yet that movement moves us towards praise. We reflect. We remember. We talk to our souls. We rally ourselves to remember You are good, God. We move towards what should be but is not yet.
Then we wobble. Like any hiker who grows weary, we grow ambivalent. We wonder if You are paying attention, God.
When I feel unsteady and unsure of what God is up to, I feel like I am sparring with God. We are eyeing one another, staying in our corners. Then we move to the middle of the ring to box it out, to tussle over all that is descending upon me.
Quite often, this is not just an intangible moment. My body gets into the act. I hold my breath. I flinch. I am both restless and sluggish. I am hollow. My fragility shows itself as I sleep sporadically, my mind tumbles through the long night. Tension reigns from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet. My gut knots up as do my shoulders.
So, just like a hiker does, I go back and re-examine the map. Where exactly am I now? Where am I headed? I’m disoriented. I need reorienting.
I may need to encourage my soul to be kinder to itself. I might need to encourage my soul to rest and reside in God for what feels so tender, so long, and so unknowable. I might need to do both.
Like a boxer, God never hesitates when I want to go several rounds.
I behold God. He reminds me of my belovedness. I remind Him of my grief.
I look at Him and discover again His lavish love and utter trustworthiness.
There’s been a downward trajectory. Now I reach a turning point and move into an upward trajectory.
Yes, I behold my grief. Yes, I box with God. Yes, I sit on the side of the steep mountain exhausted and unsure I’ll reach the top.
Then, I behold His goodness again. I behold my belovedness again.
It won’t be the last time I’ll grieve, be filled with sorrow, and lament.
The Grief and Lament of Lent
Lent provides space to wrestle with God, to grieve, to be sorrowful about pain. Pain rings loud in our soul, in our body. There is pain for things done to us or things we have done to ourselves or others.
Lament offers us a path on pain’s road to transformation.
In Lent’s forty days, we travel with Jesus who leads us in the desert, in the places of temptation, in moments of despair. He also leads onward to Holy Week, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and glorious Easter’s Resurrection Sunday.
Grief doesn’t get the final word. We grieve as those who hope. For one day, all this grief I behold will be no more. No more. No more. No more. And won’t that be just glorious???
When we behold our grief, we do so in the companionship of the One who loves us best. He comes alongside to comfort. In a variety of ways, we can behold our grief and wrestle with it. Praying the Lament Psalms provides a path forward. Alongside lament, we can seek holy care through a myriad of ways. Discover the kindness of putting yourself in the hands of a wise therapist, a sage spiritual director, the community of believers, and well-trained medical personnel. When we behold our grief, we realize it may begin in one realm yet impact other realms of our being.
Doing the work of grief and the work of healing will take us into a variety of modalities. Inner healing prayer, trauma therapy, story work, EMDR, counseling intensives, and appropriate medically prescribed and monitored medications offer companions to our body, soul, mind, and spirit alongside lament. We want all the healing we can get this side of heaven. When I learn to name my pain, my emotions, use Feelings Wheels and Charts and engage with trained listeners and practitioners, I begin to recognize the shape of my interior being and see ways God provides rescue and restoration.
As I recover from hip replacement surgery, I engage in various ways to get the healing I need from pain’s pummeling. I rest, ice, compress, and elevate. I eat nutritious meals. I sleep. I drink water. I attend physical therapy and then act with determination to enact the exercises assigned for more healing. I behold my grief and pain. I lament. I trust. I wrestle. I behold my belovedness. I am lavishly embraced by the God who beholds me with His utter delight and His ultimate desire to draw me close to Him as He heals me, offering spiritual freedom that brings me to life in the full.
Lament / Grief Resources
- Jesus in the Wilderness – FREE Lent resource to walk in the wilderness with Jesus daily in this season
- Feelings Wheel
- Lament in Lent – Spotify playlist
- Every Moment Holy Volume II on Grief: Death, Grief, and Hope, Douglas McKelvey, 2021, Rabbit Room Press
