I have watched a friend in pain struggle painfully evident on her face when only praise music is offered in the worship service. I have had severe relationship breaks that seemly have gone unanswered and no amount of "praise music" can replace the wrestling and healing my soul needed and still needs. My sister recently became a widow at 58 and I sat with her in services that only emphasize the good God gives us, with no mention of the struggles/heartaches/knock-you-on-your-face hardships this life includes, and how it did not comfort, but added to the grief she carried. I felt like it taunted her. I watched a young mother deal with a lifelong diagnosis for her child and her feeling the silence of God.
It is just, right and good when we declare His goodness, but unless we see that goodness juxtaposed with life's hardships, that declaration rings shallow and strips His goodness of the depth it deserves and the slow transformative healing His goodness will bring. Because it is slow transformation, weekly lament around our sins and sorrows with our local church community, brought to Jesus as we partake of the Eucharist, will be the place that forgiveness (for sins), healing (for the brokenness we experience), and fellowship (to show us we are not alone in our sins and sorrows) are experienced and can do that transformative work. As His word is declared, we hear and experience His goodness.
The older I get, the more I see the need for regular, corporate lament and quite frankly the more frustrated I am at my generation (I'm almost 60) for ignoring, dismissing, or making peripheral the weekly practice of lament and necessary taking of the Eucharist.
My plan is to use this space to record what I read, hear, see and think. No answers, just writing to know what I think and to learn.
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