Two Songs: One Lament

I sat down at the piano and two songs tumbled out. One after the other. Neither one is pretending. One without the other wouldn’t be truthful. This is my lament.

In the Psalms, we read many beautiful songs written for the followers of God to sing or meditate on. Part of this repertoire are the lament Psalms: honest, gut-wrenching cries to God, spilling out all of the hurt and brokenness before Him. Although these Psalms describe great sorrow and fear, they also remember God’s faithfulness. (check out Psalm 42).

If we won’t sit and look our pain in the face, we might miss out on seeing God with us in the middle of it. It’s hard to describe God as faithful if I won’t go to the hard places and find Him there with me.

And so, I may have written these as two separate songs but truly they ebb and flow together. So much so, it is difficult to untie the two. Grief, real and visceral, can live in the same heart as gratitude for God’s faithfulness. In fact, the more I feel my grief, the more I encounter the faithfulness of my Divine Father.

May this be true in the middle of your grief. May you find comfort and companionship in the Holy Spirit, friendship in Jesus as you are led to the good and kind heart of the Father, willing to be present with you in all the feelings. Amen.