The Discipline of Lament

By Sophia Basil

In this life we will all face pain, loss, and suffering. Jesus tells us clearly “in this world you will face tribulation” (John 16:33), and even presents us with the invitation “take up your cross” (Matthew 16:24). We know that suffering is part of the human experience. Yet, in our humanness, we know it will not be easy. What does it look like for us to undergo trials when things get really hard?

As Christians, the question we ask ourselves is not “How can I minimize suffering?”, but rather “When I am faced with suffering in this life, how will I respond?” or even “How can I suffer well?”.

Today I’d like us to reflect on one way in which our Mother Church and Jesus Christ Himself has invited us to suffer well: we must lament.

Back in January, I attended an ecumenical night of prayer for a group of vulnerable women in Seattle. At this event, I was introduced to the “discipline of lament” as a form of prayer. During this time of prayer, we were led through a “litany of lament”, in which we grieved injustices, brokenness, abuse, sin, and suffering. The prayer leader brought forth specific grievances, crying out to God “This should not be”, and the congregation responded “Father, we cry out to you. Come, Lord Jesus”.

I was incredibly moved by this prayer. I felt it to be an authentic dialogue with our Heavenly Father about the injustices and pain we were encountering in our broken world, and how our hearts of justice sought to proclaim they "should not be". We were letting Him be our almighty God, while also honoring the experiences of our humanity that caused us great grief.

This was the first time I became attentive to the reality that grief and lamentation is something that we can enter into intentionally as a way to pray and process emotional pain. In the past, I thought grief, anger, pain, sadness, were expressions that we would get uncontrollably swept up into when we are emotionally overwhelmed. Now, I see that lamenting is something we can enter into purposefully, with the intention of grieving, healing, reconciling, forgiving, letting ourselves be cared for by our God, and even at times grappling with God.

Suffering is something that affects our whole personhood. When we experience pain, our minds, hearts, bodies, emotions, and souls are affected. A wound is incurred. And just as we need a remedy or cure for a physical wound, we need to experience healing on an emotional and spiritual level in order to continue moving forward. This is where the discipline of lament comes in. Lamenting offers us a means of honestly processing pain, inviting God into it, and letting Him be our God in all things. Lament calls upon our Heavenly Father to see the brokenness we are experiencing and appeals to His heart of justice and mercy for His children. We invite Him to be our Divine Physician, trusting that He hears us amid our anguish.

With challenging emotions like sadness, anger, loneliness, and fear, if we don’t process these feelings we can tend to get stuck in hopelessness or discouragement. Disney’s movie Inside Out does an excellent job at illustrating this reality to us. This is why naming, processing, and expressing our emotions in healthy ways is such an important task to undertake. But, it can be difficult to develop this emotional intelligence, especially when we were not taught how to do this as children. As such, the Church in her Motherly Wisdom, gives us the discipline of lament to help lead us to healing and reconciliation. She has gifted us with numerous examples of the power of lamentation that we can bear witness to and learn from in Scripture:

In the Old Testament we witness God’s people engage in the practice of tearing their garments in grief. They did this as an external sign to express their interior pain: “This should not be”. We see King David in the Old Testament lamenting Saul’s unjust attempts to hunt him down and kill him (Psalm 13). And yet we also see David weeping, fasting, and tearing his garments after learning Saul was dead (2 Samuel 1:11-12). David laments both the injustice done to him by his family member, and also the pain that came with losing this same family member. By grieving these things, David was able to move through the anguish and sorrow that Saul caused him, and not let it have power over him.

Sometimes our suffering comes from others hurting us.

Sometimes our suffering comes from broken relationships with a loved one.

So we must lament.

Our Lord Jesus, Himself, also exemplifies to us the painful beauty of lament. The night before he died, He did not withhold giving us His vulnerable witness of the Agony in the Garden. Jesus, in the fullness of His humanity, must set aside time drawn away from the world, to cry and grieve His impending suffering. He calls upon His Father to take away the suffering, while simultaneously surrendering His own will. Jesus invited His heavenly Father into the experience of His pain, knowing the injustice and suffering that was being inflicted upon him.

Sometimes our suffering comes from knowing there will be pain involved in doing God's will.

Sometimes our suffering comes from accepting undeserved injustices.

So we must lament.

We also have the example of our Mother Mary, who allowed her heart to be pierced by a sword, seeing her beloved Son brutally murdered. When she said “yes” to being the Mother of God, she also said “yes” to all the joys and sufferings that came along with this astounding vocation. Mary endured immense emotional pain by bearing witness to and accompanying her Son in His passion. In the film The Passion of The Christ, we get an incredibly personal illustration of just how painful it was for Mary to undergo this heartbreak.

Sometimes our suffering comes from seeing our loved ones in pain.

Sometimes our suffering comes from witnessing brokenness in the Church, the Body of Christ.

So we must lament.

Through these witnesses, we can come to understand that it is important that we lament. We will all face hardships in our own stories. Sometimes we experienced events that explicitly hurt us. Sometimes there is a lack of care or love that is the cause of injury. We live in a broken world. And yet, our God is a God of justice, mercy, and compassion. So let us be encouraged: by the grace of God, we can learn to suffer well, growing in courage and resilience and honesty in expressing our hearts to our Lord. Let us take on the challenge of lamenting well, so that we might therefore heal well, reconcile well, forgive well, and love well.

Reflection Questions

When I become distressed, how comfortable am I entering into the experience of grief and lament? Is it something I have practiced well in my life or is it something I tend to avoid?
What are some things I could do to engage in the discipline of lament? What are the things that cause me distress? How could I invite God into those places, crying out “This should not be”?