Tuesday's Trust - Feel You Are Falling Apart? We are Held Together by Him...

Tuesday's Trust

Feel You Are Falling Apart?

We are Held Together by Him...

[We pray] that you may be invigorated and strengthened with all power according to the might of His glory, [to exercise] every kind of endurance and patience (perseverance and forbearance) with joy, 

Giving thanks to the Father, Who has qualified and made us fit to share the portion which is the inheritance of the saints (God's holy people) in the Light. 

[The Father] has delivered and drawn us to Himself out of the control and the dominion of darkness and has transferred us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, 

In Whom we have our redemption through His blood, [which means] the forgiveness of our sins. 

[Now] He is the exact likeness of the unseen God [the visible representation of the invisible]; He is the Firstborn of all creation.

For it was in Him that all things were created, in heaven and on earth, things seen and things unseen, whether thrones, dominions, rulers, or authorities; all things were created and exist through Him [by His service, intervention] and in and for Him.

And He Himself existed before all things, and in Him all things consist (cohere, are held together). [Proverbs 8:22-31] {See below for more about this Proverbs passage.}

~Colossians 1:11-17, Amplified Version

So through this child-loss grief, 

this grief that rips us apart..

we can trust that we are ever being held together by Him!

~~~~~

For further reading...

 [Proverbs 8:22-31 (read the amplified version of this below) is a further description of Jesus ("Wisdom") being with God before all creation was even made, and even describes Christ's role in creation! In this passage of Scripture, it describes that God the Father and God the Son were together before anything else was made, and together they created all of earth's beauty and all of Heaven's beauty, and they have held it together for us… 

Proverbs 8:22-31

Amplified Bible (AMP)

²² The Lord formed and brought Me [Wisdom] forth at the beginning of His way, before His acts of old.

²³ I [Wisdom] was inaugurated and ordained from everlasting, from the beginning, before ever the earth existed.

²⁴ When there were no deeps, I was brought forth, when there were no fountains laden with water.

²⁵ Before the mountains were settled, before the hills, I was brought forth,

²⁶ While as yet He had not made the land or the fields or the first of the dust of the earth.

²⁷ When He prepared the heavens, I [Wisdom] was there; when He drew a circle upon the face of the deep and stretched out the firmament over it,

²⁸ When He made firm the skies above, when He established the fountains of the deep,

²⁹ When He gave to the sea its limit and His decree that the waters should not transgress [across the boundaries set by] His command, when He appointed the foundations of the earth—

³⁰ Then I [Wisdom] was beside Him as a master and director of the work; and I was daily His delight, rejoicing before Him always,

³¹ Rejoicing in His inhabited earth and delighting in the sons of men.

The same God, the Trinity, the Three-in-One: Father, Son, and Spirit, can surely hold us together as "in Him all things are held together," as He holds together all His creation, even as we trust He holds our children together, in His arms, today and every day, for all eternity…

Graphic, thanks to ~2012: Love and Loss

Monday's Mourning Ministry - "Talitha, Koum!" / The Voice of My Beloved ~Cynthia Clawson

Monday's Mourning Ministry

"Talitha, Koum!"

/

The Voice of My Beloved

~Cynthia Clawson

In Scripture, when Jesus was asked by a father, a man named Jairus who knew he was about to lose his daughter, to come to his home and lay hands on his daughter who was about to die, Jesus was very responsive and went right away with Jairus to the man's home. Even though people from his home town came and found this father in the crowd of people traveling with them, to tell him not to bother Jesus any more because his daughter had already died, Jesus ignored the people and told the father, a synagogue leader, "Don't be afraid; just believe." 

When He arrived at the house, Jesus questioned the many people that had already gathered there inside the home, why they were making so much noise weeping and wailing, and said, "She is not dead, only asleep." The people began mocking Him, full of disbelief, so Jesus threw them out of the house. Jesus then took the child's father and mother and His three disciples into the room where the little girl was;.He then took the little girl's hand, and said the now famous words, "Talitha, koum!" - Aramaic for, "Little girl, rise up!"

~~~

Jesus could have said these words to my child as well on that night that was fatal for her, but He did not... Ofttimes I wonder why He didn't utter those words to her that night… And yet, I imagine what my child must have heard when Jesus did call to her that night… Was it the voice of her Beloved as the song so tenderly describes, as she heard, "Precious child, rise up, and come to Me!" 

Either message Jesus delivered was His voice of love calling out to both girls. Either message He uttered was a message of love. In a different, but equally loving way, my child heard His words, "Talitha. koum!" "Baby girl, rise up!" And for that I am so very grateful… If she could talk to me tonight to describe it to me, would she tell me what she heard that night… words similar to Clawson's? 

"Hear the voice of my Beloved 

gently call at close of day:

'Come my love, come and meet Me!

Rise, oh rise, and come away!'"

Hear the Voice of My Beloved

~Cynthia Clawson

(Gaither Homecoming)

Hear the voice of my Beloved

Gently call at close of day:

"Come my love, come and meet me!

Rise, oh rise, and come away!"

Winter’s Dark will soon be over

And the rain is nearly done

Flowers bloom and trees are budding

Time for singing has begun.

I have waited through the Shadow

For my Lord to call for me.

Now the Morning breaks eternal

In its light His face I see

Now the Morning breaks eternal

And at last His face I see.

When you see the fields re-budding,

You will know the summer’s near

And when you hear the words I’ve spoken,

You will know My coming’s near!

So keep on listening, my beloved,

For My coming’s very near!

~~~~~

Mark 5:21-43 (The Expanded version of the Bible):

Jesus Gives Life to a Dead Girl and Heals a Sick Woman

21 When Jesus went in the boat back to the other side of the lake, a large crowd gathered around him there. 22 A leader of the synagogue, named Jairus, came there, saw Jesus, and ·fell [bowed; knelt] at his feet. 23 He begged Jesus, ·saying again and again [earnestly saying], “My daughter is dying. Please come and ·put [lay] your hands on her so she will be healed and will live.” 24 So Jesus went with him.

A large crowd followed Jesus and pushed very close around him. 25 Among them was a woman who had been bleeding for twelve years [C probably a chronic menstrual disorder]. 26 She had suffered very much from many doctors and had spent all the money she had, but instead of improving, she was getting worse. 27 When the woman heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his ·coat [cloak; garment]. 28 [For] She ·thought [said], “If I can just touch his clothes, I will ·be healed [get well; be saved].” 29 Instantly her bleeding stopped, and she felt in her body that she was healed from her disease.

30 At once Jesus ·felt [perceived] power go out from him. So he turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”

31 His ·followers [disciples] said, “Look at how many people are pushing against you! And you ask, ‘Who touched me?’”

32 But Jesus continued looking around to see who had touched him. 33 The woman, knowing that she was healed, came and fell at Jesus’ feet. Shaking with fear, she told him the whole truth. 34 Jesus said to her, “·Dear woman [Daughter], ·you are made well because you believed [your faith has saved/healed you]. Go in peace; be healed of your disease.”

35 While Jesus was still speaking, some people came from the house of the synagogue leader. They said, “Your daughter is dead. ·There is no need to bother the teacher anymore.” [Why trouble the teacher anymore?”]

36 But Jesus ·paid no attention to [or overheard] what they said. He told the synagogue leader, “Don’t be afraid; just believe.”

37 Jesus let only Peter, James, and John the brother of James go with him. 38 When they came to the house of the synagogue leader, Jesus found many people there making lots of noise and ·crying loudly [weeping and wailing loudly].39 Jesus entered the house and said to them, “Why are you ·crying [weeping] and making so much noise? The child is not dead, only asleep.” 40 But they ·laughed at [ridiculed] him. So, after ·throwing [putting] them [all] out of the house, Jesus took the child’s father and mother and his three followers into the room where the child was. 41 Taking hold of the girl’s hand, he said to her, “Talitha, koum!” (This means [in Aramaic, the language Jesus commonly spoke], “Little girl, I tell you to stand up!”) 42 At once the girl stood right up and began walking. (She was twelve years old.) Everyone was completely amazed. 43 Jesus gave them strict orders not to tell people about this. Then he told them to give the girl something to eat.

Picture, thanks to, "Hope for the Broken Hearted" 
Grief Song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-FGjI4WVG4

Saturday's Sayings - "What Other Answer Would Suffice?"

Saturday's Sayings 

"What Other Answer Would Suffice?"

~Safehaven For Widowed

“For in grief nothing 'stays put.' One keeps on emerging from a phase, but it always recurs. Round and round. Everything repeats. Am I going in circles, or dare I hope I am on a spiral? 

"But if a spiral, am I going up or down it? 

"How often -- will it be for always? -- how often will the vast emptiness astonish me like a complete novelty and make me say, 'I never realized my loss till this moment?' The same leg is cut off time after time.” 

― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

~~~~~

~Safehaven For Widowed

“I thought I could describe a state; make a map of sorrow. Sorrow, however, turns out to be not a state but a process. 

"It needs not a map but a history...” 

― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

~~~~~

~Safehaven For Widowed

“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on swallowing. 

"At other times it feels like being mildly drunk, or concussed. There is a sort of invisible blanket between the world and me. I find it hard to take in what anyone says. Or perhaps, hard to want to take it in. It is so uninteresting. Yet I want the others to be about me. I dread the moments when the house is empty. If only they would talk to one another and not to me.” 

― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

~~~~~

~Safehaven For Widowed

“If a mother is mourning not for what she has lost but for what her dead child has lost, it is a comfort to believe that the child has not lost the end for which it was created. And it is a comfort to believe that she herself, in losing her chief or only natural happiness, has not lost a greater thing, that she may still hope to 'glorify God and enjoy Him forever.' A comfort to the God-aimed, eternal spirit within her.  

"But not to her motherhood. The specifically maternal happiness must be written off. Never, in any place or time, will she have her son on her knees, or bathe him, or tell him a story, or plan for his future, or see her grandchild.” 

― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

~~~~~

~Hers to Treasure

“...My idea of God is a not divine idea. It has to be shattered from time to time. He shatters it Himself. He is the great iconoclast. Could we not almost say that this shattering is one of the marks of His presence?..” 

― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

“Reality the iconoclast once more. Heaven will solve our problems, but not, I think, by showing us subtle reconciliations between all our apparently contradictory notions. The notions will all be knocked from under our feet. We shall see that there never was any problem.” 

― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

“If my house has collapsed at one blow, that is because it was a house of cards. The faith which 'took these things into account' was not faith but imagination.” 

― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

“I know now, Lord, why You utter no answer. You are Yourself the answer. Before Your face questions die away.  

"What other answer would suffice?” 

― C.S. Lewis

Pictures, thanks to ~Grieving Mother Dani, ~ Safehaven For Widowed and ~ Hers To Treasure 
C.S. Lewis Quotes, thanks to goodreads.com

Friday's Faith - The Answer to the Question Many of Us Ask

Friday's Faith

The Answer to the Question Many of Us Ask

When I recently read in theologian and grief father Jerry Sittser's book When God Doesn't Answer Your Prayer, I found that I had not gotten very far into the book when I suddenly felt the strong urge to pick his book up and throw it as hard as I could across the room…

... Sittser was citing the story Jesus told regarding whose prayer is acceptable and whose is not, as Jesus went to the Temple and observed the prayers of the self-righteous Pharisee whose prayer was prideful and filled with many words, versus the humbled tax colliector's simple cry of desperation:

"His emptiness ran so deep that he could hardly name it, except to say that he needed God's mercy. 

"Barely able to speak, he choked out a short, simple prayer."

Sittser goes on to say, 

"Jesus said that it was the tax collector's prayer that proved to be the acceptable one, because (according to Sittser) he knew his true need and admitted it."

Then Sittser continued on:

"The heart of true prayer is this cry of desperation… (W)hat is most fundamental is the spirit of our prayers, the cry of the heart to get help from the only one who can meet our deepest need. 

"Desperation is the first and primary condition for true prayer...  Desperation forces us to pray as we ought."

When I read these words, I admit, my spirit plummeted. I was so furious, I had to put the book down. Not until tonight did I open it again to record his words here. 

Why was I so furious?

Because these were exactly the kinds of prayers Tommy and I had each been crying out to our God for our child. Abject desperation was present, and God clearly had to know that, sense that, and feel that coming from us. (And I am sure from many of us Child-Loss parents when we still had our child with us!)  So… if "the heart of true prayer is desperation,"

Why were our prayers denied?!

The only reason I could pick the book up again today was I received my answer, not through the book, but through THE BOOK. Amidst Scriptures, I had read many, many times, I read anew these words today, yet this time it seemed my "answer" leapt off the pages at me!

I was reading in Hebrews 11, often known as "The Faith Chapter" of the Bible because it elucidates many of God's early followers who chose to follow Him essentially blindly (by faith), and God used their lives mightily and was commending them for their faith… Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses, to name a few, names we recognize as true fathers of our faith, who lived their faith to the end, yet this is what Scripture tells us:

All these people were still living by faith when they died. 

They.did. not. receive. the. things. promised; they.only.saw.them.and. welcomed. them. from. a. distance. 

~Hebrews 11:13

And they admitted they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country - a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

At the end of the chapter, the Scripture reiterates this message:

These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect. 

~Hebrews 11:39

And I say, 

O what a party that will be, when our desperate cries are met--along with our loved ones--- "as only together with us"--- will we all be made perfect, with all of our prayers perfectly answered in one another's presence---together--- but this time, together... forever!!!

Picture, thanks to ~Journey of the Survivor (From Grief to Survival)

Friday's Faith - How Do We Repair Our Grief "Damage"? ~Tommy and Angie Prince

I have had many losses throughout my lifetime

but never anything that felt like my heart was

shattered into a million tiny pieces and

changing everything about me and who I am…

Friday's Faith

How Do We Repair Our Grief "Damage"?

~Tommy and Angie Prince

Yesterday, I (Angie) went to settle up with a client after an insurance payment had come in… She (very graciously) asked me to recheck my figures as it didn't seem quite right to her, so I did. And to my dismay, I discovered (after five hours of rechecking all the figures) ~of course not able to find some of the critical paperwork that was needed that had just come in at the end of December mind you~ (I call it the "Grief-Stupor Syndrome"), that indeed, my figures were off by about a thousand dollars!!! My mathematical brain seems to me to be broken as what I once was able to do ~almost in my sleep~ now seems to be beyond me to accurately figure out. (Granted, even my billing practices have been compromised as paperwork just seems to be in that 10% of my life that gets impacted with some unwanted neglect by my seeming 90% consumption with my grief!) 

I am thankful to get the problem sorted out, but still, I somehow feel "broken" by my grief. . .

~~~~~

What do we do as Child-Loss Grievers when we see how strongly our child's death continually impacts us even 6 1/2 years into our grief?

A car gets wrecked, and you assess the damage to see if it can be fixed, and for how much, and is it worth it to be fixed. 

A child gets killed, and the parents are left behind with broken hearts shattered into a million tiny pieces. What do we do? Do we now have to just assess the damage, and see how much of this heart can be fixed, and how much of it is totaled? And, if some of it can be fixed, then how do we go about getting it fixed?

The cars in our neighborhood that were left out in the driveways during the hail storm were damaged - through no fault of our own. Some cars were able to be fixed, and some cars were totaled. Neighbors went to insurance adjusters, and the insurance adjusters determined whether or not their cars could be fixed; the insurance adjusters have certain standards they go by to determine whether or not a car can be fixed, or whether it should be totaled. 

Here we are as bereaved parents, walking around with a broken heart, wondering if we can be fixed, or how much of us can be fixed amidst our grief "damage." 

To whom do we go to assess the damage? Nobody "gets it" but us, yet we are broken. . .

Perhaps this is where we go to God. The only alternative we have is to go to God, and say, 

"Help! How can my heart, brain, body, and soul be fixed after my heart has been shattered into a million tiny pieces?"

It's so strange that those we need

…………And those we love the best

……………………Are just the ones God called away

………………………………And took them Home to rest

But every time I think of you

…………I seem to hear God say 

……………………have faith and trust My promise

………………………………You'll meet again someday…

~2013 Michele S.

~Picture, thanks to Grieving Mother, Pat Dattoli Wentworth

"Heart Shattered in a Million Tiny Pieces" Picture, thanks to "Grieving Mothers," Barbara J. Karrer

Tuesday's Trust - Child-Loss: Hurricane to My Faith? ~Tommy Prince

Tuesday's Trust

Child-Loss: Hurricane to My Faith?

~Tommy Prince

"What do we ever know that is higher than that power which, from time to time, seizes our lives, and reveals us startlingly to ourselves as creatures set down here bewildered?"

"Why does death so catch us by surprise, and why love? We still and always want waking.”

~ Annie Dillard, The Writing Life

The Death of Our Teenaged Daughter… 

Hurricane to My Faith?

Faith...

Her death has changed everything about how I approach my faith. Everything.

~~~

“'Last forever!' Who hasn't prayed that prayer? You were lucky to get it in the first place. The present is a freely given canvas. That it is constantly being ripped apart and washed downstream goes without saying.” 

~ Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

~~~~~

Music…

I am a drummer. I have always had a rhythm going through my head… That is until the lights went out. Light turned to Dark. Sound turned to a Dusty Nothingness...

~~~

“I had been my whole life a bell, and never knew it until at that moment I was lifted and struck.” 

~ Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

  

~~~~~ 

Christian Music…

Before her death, I could pretty much enjoy most of the Christian music out there...

After Merry Katherine was killed, for quite awhile, I didn't want to hear any of it. Over time, there's been a little bit of opening, and I can hear a select type of song now.

~~~~~

Corporate Worship:

Forget going to church. In terms of a corporate worship experience? No Desire. It seems Grievers and Non-Grievers don't mix well.

~~~~

“Why do we people in churches seem like cheerful, brainless tourists on a packaged tour of the Absolute?” 

~ Annie Dillard

“There is always the temptation in life to diddle around making itsy-bitsy friends and meals and journeys for years on end. It is all so self conscious, so apparently moral...But I won't have it. The world is wilder than that in all directions, more dangerous...more extravagant and bright. We are...raising tomatoes when we should be raising Cain, or Lazarus.” 

~ Annie Dillard

~~~~~

Intimacy with God:

“We sleep to time's hurdy-gurdy; we wake, if ever we wake, to the silence of God. And then, when we wake to the deep shores of time uncreated, then when the dazzling dark breaks over the far slopes of time, then it's time to toss things, like our reason, and our will; then it's time to break our necks for Home.

"There are no events but thoughts and the heart's hard turning, the heart's slow learning where to love and whom. The rest is merely gossip, and tales for other times.” 

~ Annie Dillard, Holy the Firm

“You've got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down.” 

~ Annie Dillard

~~~

I find myself being very shy about approaching the throne of grace. Casualness about my spiritual life has been eliminated. I cannot take anything for granted now.

The Assuredness Factor has been shattered. When I hear people talk about spirituality in a superficial way, it is Anathema to me.

Scripture very clearly states, "You will know they are My disciples by how they love on each other."

(Jesus speaking,) "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

~John 13:34-35 NASB

But all I hear are either fear-based ideations, or superficial claims on God with no love in it. There's a false sense of confidence, and a false sense of power. There seems to be no awe of God in the religiosity around us. 

~~~

"On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return. ” 

~ Annie Dillard

~~~~~

True Power...

We are not the one in charge here: God is. 

The Bible is not like a menu where you can select what you want.

~~~~~

Hurricane...

Child-Loss in regard to my faith is like a hurricane that has swept the foundation right out from under me, and I've collapsed in on myself…

There is no spiritual "FEMA" coming to my rescue. Quite the opposite. Everyone disappears. The recovery period to renovate my faith is snail-slow and turtle-tedious… one centimeter at a time.

~~~

“What does it feel like to be alive?

"Living, you stand under a waterfall. You leave the sleeping shore deliberately; you shed your dusty clothes, pick your barefoot way over the high, slippery rocks, hold your breath, choose your footing, and step into the waterfall. The hard water pelts your skull, bangs in bits on your shoulders and arms. The strong water dashes down beside you and you feel it along your calves and thighs rising roughly backup, up to the roiling surface, full of bubbles that slide up your skin or break on you at full speed. Can you breathe here? Here where the force is the greatest and only the strength of your neck holds the river out of your face. Yes, you can breathe even here. You could learn to live like this. And you can, if you concentrate, even look out at the peaceful far bank where you try to raise your arms. What a racket in your ears, what a scattershot pummeling!

"It is time pounding at you, time. Knowing you are alive is watching on every side your generation's short time falling away as fast as rivers drop through air, and feeling it hit.” 

~ Annie Dillard, An American Childhood

~~~~~

Christmas…

And now, Christmas is upon us. The hope of the Christ Child. The answer to all our fears about death. The solution to the wrecked results of our child's demise. The one and only way we can survive Grief.

~~~

“I am sorry I ran from You. I am still running, running from that knowledge, that eye, that love from which there is no refuge. For You meant only love, and love, and I felt only fear, and pain. So once in Israel Love came to us incarnate, stood in the doorway between two worlds, and we were all afraid.” 

~ Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters

“I am a frayed and nibbled survivor in a fallen world, and I am getting along. I am aging and eaten and have done my share of eating too. I am not washed and beautiful, in control of a shining world in which everything fits, but instead am wondering awed about on a splintered wreck I've come to care for, whose gnawed trees breathe a delicate air, whose bloodied and scarred creatures are my dearest companions, and whose beauty bats and shines not in its imperfections but overwhelmingly in spite of them...” 

~ Annie Dillard

(In the Annie Dillard quotes, some capitalizations, mine)









Picture, thanks to grieving mother, Faye Marie Miller
Quotes, Annie Dillard, thanks to Goodreads
Scripture, NASB = New American Standard Bible

Thursday's Therapy - A Call to Lament - Part Three ~Nicholas Wolterstorff ~Blessed Thanksgiving

Thursday's Therapy

A Call to Lament

Part Three

~Nicholas Wolterstorff

Have a Blessed Thanksgiving!

If God Is Good and Sovereign, Why Lament?

Praise and lament --- two components of the Christian life. There are more, of course, many more. Repentance, for example. But at least these two: praise and lament.

Or is that true? Are both of these really parts of the Christian life? No one doubts that praise of God is part of the Christian life. There may be times in our lives when we find it difficult to praise God, yet no believer doubts that praise is a component within the well-formed Christian life. But what about lament? 

No doubt most Christians, if asked, would say that lament is part of the well-formed Christian life. We all know that there are laments in the Psalms; we all sing them, or participate in their reading. So it would not feel right to say, flat out, that lament has no place in the Christian life. 

But it's open to question whether we all really believe it. The "victorious living" mentality currently sweeping through American Christianity has no place for lament. Likewise the megachurches have no place for it. Lament does not market well.

If one goes beyond the words and looks at contemporary American Christianity as it actually exists---looks at how it lives its life and expresses its faith---one comes to the conclusion that most of it does not believe that lament is part of the Christian life. This is in spite of what it may think is the catechetically correct answer to give if directly asked whether it is. 

What is lament?

We must start by considering what lament is. I shall take the biblical laments, particularly the laments of the psalms, as my paradigms. Psalm 22 is a particularly good example, since all the basic elements are there: some of the other lament psalms are truncated. 

The lament, at its heart, is giving voice to the suffering that accompanies deep loss, whatever that loss may be. Lament is not about suffering. Lament is not concerning suffering. Lament does not count the stages and try to identify the stage in which one finds oneself.  

Lament is the bringing to speech of suffering, the languaging of suffering, the voicing of suffering. Behind lament are tears over loss. Lament goes beyond the tears to voicing the suffering. To voice suffering, one must name it---identify it. 

Sometimes that is difficult, even impossible. The memories are repressed so that the suffering is screened from view. Or one is aware of it, in a way; but naming it, identifying it for what it is, would be too painful, too embarrassing. So, one resists. Then one cannot lament. One suffers without being able to lament. Lament is an achievement. 

One must not only name one's suffering if one is to voice it; one must also own it. Instead of disowning it one has to admit it as part of who one is---a part of one's narrative identity. If someone asks, "Tell me who you are," one says, maybe not immediately but eventually,

"I am someone who went through a painful divorce,"

"I am someone who suffered the loss of a child,"

"I am someone who was fired after twenty years of faithful work." 

To disown one's suffering is to try to delete it from one's narrative or prevent it from ever becoming a part---to try to forget it, put it behind one, get on with things. Lament, in requiring that one voice one's suffering, requires that one not only name it but own it. Owning one's suffering is often difficult: it is painful or embarrassing to incorporate one's suffering into one's life story. 

………Listen now to the psalmist:

………But I am a worm and no man;

………….scorned by men and despised by the people.

………All who see me mock at me, 

………….they make mouths at me, they wag their heads;

………He committed his cause to the Lord; let him deliver him,

………….let him rescue him, for he delights in him!"

(Psalm 22:6-8,  RSV)

………I am poured out like water, 

………….and all my bones are out of joint;

………my heart is like wax,

………….it is melted within my breast;

………my strength is dried up like a potsherd,

………….and my tongue cleaves to my jaw;

………….thou dost lay me in the dust of death.

………Yea, dogs are round about me;

………….a company of evil doers encircle me;

………….they have pierced my hands and feet---

………I can count all my bones---

………….they stare and gloat over me;

………they divide my garments among them,

………….and for my raiment they cast lots.

(Psalm 22:14-18 , RSV)

Lament is more, though, than the voicing of suffering. The mere voicing of one's suffering is complaint, not lament. Lament is a cry to God. This presupposes, of course, that lament is the action of a believer. 

This cry to God has two main components, interconnected, with sometimes the one more prominent, sometimes the other. First, lament is the cry to God for deliverance: "Deliver me O God, from this suffering." Listen again to the psalmist:

………But thou, O LORD, be not far off!

………….O my help, hasten to my aid!

………Deliver my soul from the sword,

………….my life from the power of the dog!

………Save me from the mouth of the lion.

(Psalm 22:19-21a, RSV)

Second, lament is the cry to God of "Why?" "Why, O God, is this happening? I don't understand it. Where are you, O God? I cannot discern your hand in this darkness." 

………My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

………….Why are you so far from helping me, from the words

………….of my groaning?

………O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer;

………….and by night, but find no rest.

(Psalm 22:1-2, NRSV)

………Rouse yourself! Why do you sleep, O LORD? 

………….Awake! Do not cast us off forever!

………Why do you hide your face?

………….Why do you forget our affliction and oppression?

………For we sink down to the dust;

………….our bodies cling to the ground.

………Rise up, come to our help.

………….Redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love.

(Psalm 44:23-26, NRSV)

Loss, deep loss, is the shattering of meaning. The shattering of meaning at one point in one's life has rippling consequences throughout one's life; one's life as a whole threatens to lose its sense.  

For the believer, the meaning of life is tied up with her experience and understanding of God. Now, suddenly, there is a rip in her whole fabric of meaning. So the believer cries to God---who else to cry to?---not only for deliverance from suffering but also deliverance from the threat of meaninglessness.  

"Why, O God? Why is this happening? What sense does this make? We thought you were good, powerful, and knowledgeable. We thought we understood your ways. But of this, we can make no sense. Why is this happening? Where are you, O God? Why are you absent?"

………In the full-fledged lament there is one more component: a yet. The yet is an expression of the endurance of faith, or somewhat more precisely, the yet is a praise-full accounting of God's actions in the past---an accounting, thus, of the grounds of faith. Yet I will praise You. Sometimes the yet is not only retrospective but prospective. Not only have I praised you for what have been  the signs of your goodness; I will again praise you again for the goodness you will again show. 

………Yet you are holy, 

………….enthroned on the praises of Israel.

………In you our ancestors trusted; 

………….they trusted, and you delivered them.

………To you they cried, and were saved;

………….in you they trusted, and were not put to shame.

………Yet it was you who took me from the womb;

………….you kept me safe on my mother's breast.

………On you was I cast from my birth,

………….and since my mother bore me you have been my God.

………Do not be far from me,

………….for trouble is near

………….and there is no one to help.

(Psalm 22:3-5, 9-11 NRSV)

Friday's Faith - Earth's Battlefield - Reweaving the Shattered Pieces of Our Life

Guernica, 1937, Museo Reina Sofia ~Pablo Picasso

Friday's Faith

Earth's Battlefield

Reweaving the Shattered Pieces of Our Life

In child-loss grief, our very foundation is blown out from under us, shattering into thousands of tiny pieces. It is our grief work to, with God's help, reweave all these thousands of pieces back together again into a cohesive tapestry that reflects the true character of God instead of the characterization that is easy to form of Him when we're bereft and in the throes of watching our assumptive beliefs scatter from here to yon. Below is page three of three pages I wrote to my child in which I reweave the scattered pieces of my view of God's work in her life despite such work not lining up exactly with what I thought it would look like...

Page 3 of My 3-Page Letter to My Child

Earth's Battlefield

Not deliv'rance from, but vic'try in trial,

Not intermittent, but perpetual...

We serve our God on earth's battlefield;

God conquered all; you live, Mommy limps still.

God never said th' battle would be easy,

That carrying my cross wouldn't leave me queasy,

And that I wouldn't spend ev'ry day on earth grieving.

But He did promise He'd answer my prayer,

So when I leave this earth, I'll meet you in the air;

We'll hug, we'll cry, we'll laugh as He takes us There.

We'll be together forever, held in God's loving care,

And there'll be no more crying

in God's Land so fair,

And there'll be no more dying;

Christ throws Vile One in Lion's Lair,

And we'll praise Father, Son, and Spirit

with all our family There!

Pablo Picasso's Guernica, thanks to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picasso

Guernica, 1937, Museo Reina Sofia

Arguably Picasso’s most famous work is his depiction of the German bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War—Guernica. This large canvas embodies for many the inhumanity, brutality and hopelessness of war. Asked to explain its symbolism, Picasso said, “It isn’t up to the painter to define the symbols. Otherwise it would be better if he wrote them out in so many words! The public who look at the picture must interpret the symbols as they understand them.”

Poem - Earth's Battlefield, Part 3 of 3-page letter to my child - Angie Bennett Prince - 7/26/2011