The lost art of lamentation : meeting God in the midst of pain

Did you know that God created you with all of your emotions ? That your ability to experience a rich variety of emotional responses was actually a gift... and not a burden ?

News flash : we live in an imperfect world where all sorts of things happen. Our emotions are precious signals, as they help us to react, to stay alert, to adapt and to connect. The thing is... this also includes the emotions we'd rather avoid. The ones that feel painful, uncomfortable or even shameful.

Unfortunately, we live in a society that has made it very easy for us to escape pain of any sort.

Have a headache ? Take a paracetamol.

Feel bored ? Get your phone out.

Feeling stressed, sad or anxious ? Get some snacks and put on Netflix. Or go shopping.

Don't get me wrong. These things are not inherently wrong and have their use with appropriate boundaries. But they have gotten us used to finding immediate solutions to relieve pain... And when it comes to emotional pain, they make it very easy for us to avoid it.

But what if all these painful emotions are not something to be avoided but rather leaned into ?

What if they give us invaluable information about places in our soul that need tending to ?

What if emotional pain can be a doorway to experiencing the living God and grow closer to Him ?

So instead of avoiding emotional pain... What if it is something to be felt and embraced ? Not in a masochistic way - but rather so that healing and restoration can happen ?

It's a beautiful thought, I know, but maybe a bit abstract. Let me make it more concrete by giving you a personal example.

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THE EMOTIONS IN ME THAT NEEDED GRIEVING

The other day, I experienced something that triggered some really strong emotions in me. The circumstances in question were certainly not agreeable - but my emotional response seemed disproportional to the situation at hand.

Over the last years, I have gotten used to expressing what I feel to God in the moment, even when I don't fully know what is going on yet. So I started to tell Him.

In other words: I started to lament.

Over the next few days, I regularly presented my inner turmoil to God, trying to put words on what I felt and asking for His help. On a Sunday afternoon, I finally quieted down and really listened to my body. As I became present with myself and gave myself permission to experience all the swirling emotions inside of me, I started to feel an overwhelming sense of grief.

All of a sudden, I was 9 years old, grieving a great loss that happened to me at the time. I had already processed this episode of my life with God and others, so I thought I was done with it...

But my body was not.

I sobbed. For over an hour. Not silent tears, but the kind that wreck your body. I kept repeating the same words over and over again, a raw expression of pain and grief. It was so intense that I sometimes had to take some deep breaths to steady myself. But at the end of the day, I knew that these tears had been wanting to be released for a very long time and needed to come out.

The thing is this : unwept tears, ungrieved sadness and even anger don't just go away magically. They stay in your body. You may not realise it, but your body does. And these unprocessed emotions can come up in all manner of ways, such as anxiety, depression, fatigue, stress, physical and mental illnesses, addictions, people pleasing, numbing...

But the thing is this : emotional pain heals when we feel it.

I know, that's not what we want to hear. But it's true.

Physical pain is different. We feel physical pain when we heal from an injury for example, but we don't necessarily need to lean into it in order to heal. But when it comes to the soul, it heals when the wounded places of our hearts are brought forward in a safe relationship ; when the pain is felt and expressed and we are met with love and compassion.

That's how healing happens in the soul.

On that Sunday afternoon, my body eventually calmed down. This wave of grief had passed through me. It was intense and tiring, but I felt as if I had been liberated from a heavy burden that I had carried around for a long time.

I didn't have to understand it all. But I had to feel it and let it move through my body. I also needed to express my distress and thus lament it to myself and to God.

GOD'S DESIRE FOR CONNECTION WITH US

Through the whole experienced, God was a steadying presence right there with me. I could feel Him put a soothing hand on my head, and just be there with me, letting me grieve. He didn't tell me to stop crying or to calm down. He was just there beside me. He may even have cried with me, just like Jesus wept at Lazarus' tomb with Mary and Martha (John 11:35).

The thing is this: if something matters to you, whether big or small, it matters to God. Nothing is too petty, offensive or unholy to withold from Him. I actually believe that when we stay away from Him out of fear or shame, it grieves Him deeply.

You probably know the story of Adam and Eve, and how disobeyed God by eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In that moment, sin entered the world - but also shame. And when humans feel shame, they hide.

When God came into the garden after the fall, His first concern before anything else is held in this piercing question : “Where are you?” (Genesis 3:8).

Now we know that God is all knowing. He literally knew what bush or tree Adam and Eve were hiding behind ! Interestingly, the word translated by 'where' in our English translations is not the usual Hebrew word 'eifo' to find a physical location for something. Rather, the text uses the word 'ayekah' which can sometimes mean 'where' but also carries a deep sense of longing and grief.

This breaks my heart. God is described as expressing deep pain in the separation from His beautiful children, the ones He made in His image to enjoy intimacy with them. He was not the one withdrawing from Adam and Eve - they were the ones to hide from Him. And that broke His heart.

Yes, they had sinned. But notice that God didn't separate from them. He talked to them and made them clothes. He did establish consequences, yes - but even then, He started to announce prophetically the redeeming work of Christ on the cross. And He continued to interact with humans outside of the garden.

Ever since that day, humanity has felt a sense of separation from God. Sin and spiritual death entered the world. We feel flawed, naked, separated from God and others.

But God has always been there, waiting for us to come to Him.

And He still is.

LAMENTING OUR EMOTIONS IS BIBLICAL

In the Old Testament, we see some beautiful examples of people pouring out their hearts to God in raw honesty : Samuel's mother Hannah (1 Samuel 1), David in the Psalms (e.g. Psalm 6, 13, 22, 51, 142), the author of the book of Lamentations, Job... just to name a few.

And you know what ? God never rebuked them for their lament.

As a matter of fact :

• God answered Hannah's messy and tearful prayer, and she became pregnant with Samuel who would become one of the greatest prophets of Israel ;

• David is called "a man after God's own heart" ;

• The book of Lamentations mattered so much that it has a place of its own in the Bible (think about that !) ;

• God didn't rebuke Job for his honesty in expressing grief, but He did rebuke Job's friends because they blamed Job for what was happening and thus lacked compassion.

In the New Testament, we have the great example of Jesus himself who prayed in great anguish to the Father before the cross. He knew what was coming and He didn't hide from his emotions, even saying to His disciples "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death" (Matt 26:38). That's very strong language.

My point is this : feeling your emotions, naming them and pouring them out to God is biblical. God knows how he made you, with all of your emotions. He knows that in this world, we will suffer and He has given us the ability to deal with our painful emotions through lamenting them.

Unfortunately, this is not always taught in the Church. We spiritualise (and sometimes even demonise !) our emotions. We rebuke anger, sadness or grief... when maybe they just need a healthy expression. When facing difficult things, we jump straight to "statements of faith" without connecting to ourselves, thus bypassing our soul... and never healing.

But let me tell you this : God is not afraid or rebuffed by your emotions. On the contrary, He waits for you to bring them to Him. His arms are wide open to welcome all the messiness, the questions, the doubts, the anger, the sadness, the grief... even when they don't make sense.

And even when they are directed at Him.

For some people, pouring out our heart is quite natural. But let's be honest... for most of us, this is something we need to ease into.

Because some of us didn't grow up in an environment where our feelings were fully heard and validated, so we don't feel safe feeling or expressing them as adults. For others, we disconnected from our emotions because of hard things that happened. And there is also a chance that healthy lament is not something that has been taught and modeled to you in your community of faith.

So the question for a lot of us is this : how do I start ? What does it look like to lament and how can I do it ? To help and inspire you, let me give you a few tips and pointers.

HOW DO WE LAMENT ?

1) Feeling your feelings.

The starting point for any kind of lament is to feel your emotions. For some of us that's already a challenge in itself !

If you struggle to know what you are feeling, that's completely fine. You can start by getting used to noticing your body. Take a few moments to sit down or lay down, and simply notice what is happening in your body. Is there tension ? Pain ? Movement ? Stay with it and name whatever is happening.

It sounds simple maybe, but it's a great place to start because emotions are linked to the body and it will slowly help you reconnect to yourself. You are not trying to change the sensations or make them go away - just notice and be present. You can then present them to God and say "God, I am feeling tension in my neck", or "God I feel a pain in my foot". You don't need the perfect words, just try to describe whatever is happening.

When it comes to emotions, it's very similar. It helps to take a quiet moment (even if it's just a minute or two to start with) to calm down, notice what is happening in your body and then ask yourself the question : "What am I feeling right now ?". Start naming whatever you notice, whatever is coming up. Maybe it's a simple as "God, I am feeling really bad" or "I don't know what's going on God, but I am not well". Again : no need for perfection. Just start telling God about it. The goal is not to make the emotions go away, but to connect with them and experience them - and share them with God.

2) Find your own expression of lament.

There is no perfect way of lamenting your pain - find a way that fits where you are at and how you are wired. For some people, just talking out loud or in their minds to God suits them well. But for others, it can help to find different ways to express their emotions to God.

Here are just a few examples to inspire you :

• journalling

• poetry

• music & songwriting

• painting, drawing or other creative outlets

• moving around your body rhythmically & dancing

• reading psalms of lament out loud

• doing symbolic acts...

You were uniquely made, so you have unique ways of expressing your emotions. I guess that the most important part is this : just start somewhere.

Remember my personal example from the other day ? I didn't start out knowing exactly what was going on in my emotions. I didn't have the perfect words or ways of doing it. It was a bit messy and definitely not linear. I just didn't feel good... and I started to express that to God over a few days.

3) Anchoring ourselves in truth

Through the process, we can anchor ourselves in truth. I am not talking about "spiritual bypassing" when we just say scriptures and use spirituality to suppress our feelings and ignore our heart wounds. But whenever we lament, it's useful to hold onto something that we know to be true in our heart.

It can be as simple as : "God, I don't feel you but I know that you are listening" or "God, I remember when you comforted me last time, please do it again". The goal is not to religiously recite any scriptures that come to mind, but to find something that you know to be true and that you can hold onto in your emotions.

We see this very often in the psalms of lament. The authors pour out their emotions, and also remind themselves about who God is, His promises or deeds of the past. Even in the book of Lamentations with its very graphic expressions of pain and suffering (!), we find these beautiful verses in the middle of it all:

"But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope : the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. 'The Lord is my portion,' says my soul, 'therefore I will hope in him.' "

(Lamentations 3:21-23)

... and then the author plunges right back into pain and lament for another couple of chapters. But at some point in his lament, he anchored himself in truth, while also not shying away from the pain.

4) What if I don't feel or hear God ?

The ultimate goal of lamenting is to connect with God. To pour out our pain, to meet God in the middle of it and grow in intimacy with Him.

But the thing is that when we are in the midst of our pain... we don't always hear Him. And that can be painful in itself, because we can feel rejected or abandoned by God. We can start seeing God as passive, insensitive to our pain, or even cruel (not that I'm talking of personal experience...!).

So I'll just add this : for some processes, we need help from others, through counseling, inner healing, deliverance, somatic therapy... If you feel stuck in your pain, I strongly encourage you to seek help.

Over the years, I, myself, have received precious support from various Christian ministries as well as secular therapy. They have helped me to process grief, to build resilience, to gain skills in emotional awareness and to find God in the midst of it all. I am so thankful for how God has used all these wonderful people on my path onto healing and restoration. If you ask Him, He will guide you towards people who can help you too.

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I hope that as we come to a conclusion to this article, you start to feel a sense of permission.

Permission to feel.

Permission to express your emotions.

Permission to be honest with God.

Permission to be imperfect and to let yourself be known in the midst of it all.

If nothing else, I hope that you can take this away for your own life.

I hope that it inspires you to talk to God about whatever is going on in your life. Our life is mostly about relationship - first and foremost with Him. And any healthy relationship is built on authentic communication. As we share honestly with God, our intimacy grows, and that is what I truly hope for you.

May God bless you as you pour out your heart to Him. And if I know anything at all about Him... He's already waiting for you.