What do we do with deep grief and suffering? In the moments of profound pain that made us feel powerless. When we experience victimization through social injustices and neglect of the vulnerable, the hurting, and the poor. Maybe we have lost someone or something that has altered our life forever. There has been an obstruction, an unfairness, a stealing of goodness from life that can make the air heavy to breathe. We may be left feeling like the teacher in Ecclesiastes; life is hevel, as meaningless as smoke through our fingertips.
Our world was made for flourishing. We are meant for wholeness, to delight in others and be delighted in. We are meant for Shalom. Genesis describes a God who brings order to chaos. God brought structure and life to a world that was without the possibility of flourishing. He invited us to walk the gardens of Eden with Him.
Why does a God who brings structure for flourishing feel distant in our chaos? What do we do with the dissonance of ordered creation made for flourishing and the brutality of our human reality on this side of Eden?
We feel. We grieve. We lament.
Lament is an intentional response to pain and suffering. We cannot hide from our pain. If we cut off emotions, our bodies will react with anxiety, depression, health complications, illness, and other somatic and/or psychological reactions that force us to feel the weight of our emotions before we can move forward. We must ponder our stories and how they have been shaped by our families, who have stories of their own. We must consider how our stories have affected others. We cannot bypass our story and past when searching for Eden.
Adam and Eve tried to hide their shame in Eden. They tried to cover their shame and remain unseen. We do this through substances, porn, addictions, anything that may numb our nervous systems from feeling overwhelm and pain. God called out to Adam and Eve and invited them back into relationship with Him. There was severance and pain, but this was the beginning of the Gospel narrative that leads to redemption, wholeness, delight, and flourishing started with God calling out to his beloved by name.
The road to Shalom starts with lament.
Dan Allender describes the tendency of Christians to focus on celebration and redemption narratives. We are humans, and innate within us is a desire for story and meaning-making. Ecclesiastes says that we, as humans, have eternity placed on our hearts, but lack the ability to understand how God moves from beginning to end.
We are made in the image of a God who values redemption, but there is tension when our stories of pain, cruelty, loss, trauma, victimization, severance do not lead to flourishing and redemption. It feels easier to spiritually bypass our emotions when our pain feels like chaos; when we cannot find meaning for our suffering.
Our pain and our stories deserve to be honored with our attention, with our witness. Theologian and pastor Soong-Chan Rah says that “Shalom, therefore, does not eschew or diminish the role of…the reality of a suffering world. Instead, it embraces the suffering other as an instrumental aspect of well-being. Shalom requires lament.”
For there to be resurrection, there must be acknowledgment of the pain and chaos that led to Jesus being placed on a cross. Wading through the waters of our story allows for our bodies to feel our humanity and our nervous systems to calm as we integrate our experiences and make sense of our stories.
When injustice, powerlessness, and victimization occur, lament calls upon God to be present in our pain. It challenges God to acknowledge our suffering and be faithful to His promises of justice and deliverance. Lament is not an act of weakness. Lament is intentionality towards making known your anguish and powerlessness by demanding that God be faithful to the covenant He made for redemption, as he is to His promises of justice and restoration.
Lament invites God into the chaos of our lives in the expectation that He will bring flourishing from chaos. Lament honors our bodies, humanity, and story. We may not find meaning for our pain and trauma this side of Eden. Even in uncertainty, we can bear witness to our story and press into the hope that God is as faithful toward redemption as He is to justice. We can allow our bodies and nervous systems to find rest, delight, and flourishing along the road to healing. Even when we cannot find meaning this side of eternity. Even when life feels hevel.
We lament with the expectation and hope of Shalom.