The Lost Art of Lament

In the last couple of years, the idea of grieving and lamenting has become growingly important for my own life. What I have come to realize for myself, and I think for many other people, is that we don’t grieve or lament often enough and we don’t do it particularly well when we do. I have spent the great majority of my life doing what I could to avoid negative emotions and experiences, and when those things did happen, I would do what I could to numb or avoid the aftermath rather than engaging and finding growth and healing from it. With that being said, we should view grieving, lamenting, and mourning as an honest and vulnerable expression of some of our deepest emotions. These three words seem to be most often referred to when speaking about death, but these words extend to much more.

As a parent I have grieved, lamented and mourned many “deaths.” I have mourned as I expressed honest and difficult emotions with God at 3am as I lay next to my daughter’s crib because she wouldn’t sleep, and in turn, neither could I. My wife “grieved” the loss of a normal pregnancy and delivery as our daughter was diagnosed and born with a heart defect. Even at just 2-years old my daughter is better at lamenting than I am at 28-years old. I have watched, listened to, and held my daughter as she weeps and screams over what seem like minor things like having to leave the playground and come back home. But her tears and screams are honest and genuine. She deeply feels the pain of having to leave something she is so dearly enjoying. What I have slowly realized about how my daughter laments is that she doesn’t stop herself from feeling like I do. She hasn’t learned the same strategies of avoidance or have the ability to numb her emotions like I do, and she is all the better for that.

Even after living with self-protective and unhealthy ways of coping, we can all lean more into lamenting and grieving and healing can be found there. I also believe there is greater joy and happiness to be had when we lean more fully into the hard things in life. I have experienced this first-hand as the best years of my life seem to be lived while I’ve been willing to lean into the heaviness and brokenness. I have enjoyed my daughter’s life on a much more profound level because her life was threatened by a congenital heart defect. When she was diagnosed and through all her time in the hospital my wife and I both had choices to lean and feel the pain that was present or we could look to find relief by avoiding it all. I can wholeheartedly say that our willingness to be present to the pain and engage in it, weeping as we held each other at times, has allowed for more laughter and happiness as we have parented Amina.

Another part of this is that by avoiding the pain, it doesn’t mean that the suffering goes away. By not engaging in lament or grief, we in some way just push down what is always going to be there. The only true way to find yourself on the other side of these painful things is life is to go through them.

From a Christian perspective, the Bible is wrought with examples of grieving, lamenting, and mourning. People will often point to the Psalms as they are filled with deep emotions and imagery of how we can cry out to God in the form of lament.  Dr. Mark Futato writes about the “Psalms of Disorientation” and how they give us permission to let the tears flow. “You may feel tremendously perplexed or utterly forsaken or paralyzed by fear or overwhelmed with anger or lost in despair. These are times when you cry out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Futato 2007)

There is also a relational aspect to lamenting and grieving. Expressing our pain, anguish, disbelief and disorientation becomes an invitation for comfort. When we are able to express all that we feel to others, and more importantly to God, we invite them to enter into the darkness and care for us. Using the example of a crying child like my daughter, I see more clearly that her lamenting results in me coming to engage and comfort her. When we hold onto our grief and mourning, we limit the amount of comfort and love we will invite and receive.  

What I have learned is that for some reason things like lament and joy are always in tension with one another. They have this unique ability to illuminate one another. Life is more precious when held in tension with death. The biggest laughs seem even louder when held in tension with tears. And the ability to lean into both more fully has made me a more genuine, honest, and healthy person. It was my wife who pointed out to me as we planned to celebrate our daughter’s first birthday that, “healthy people grieve well and celebrate well.”