Embracing Lament: Cry out to God. Pain is the perfect time to pray

Anyone coping with loss can resonate with Psalm 31:9 in its various translations:

“Be merciful to me, Lord, for I am in distress;
    my eyes grow weak with sorrow,
    my soul and body with grief.” (New International Version)

 “Tears blur my eyes.
    My body and soul are withering away.” (New Living Translation)

“I’ve cried my eyes out.
I feel hollow inside.
My life leaks away, groan by groan;
    my years fade out in sighs.” (The Message)

Commentator George A.F. Knight says “my soul and body” can be rendered “my throat and my belly,” thus reminding every caregiver of the dry mouth and upset stomach they’ve experienced with one distress after another.

The pit in the stomach on the long walk back to the car after a terrible diagnosis.
The racing heartbeat after finding a loved one fallen on the floor.
The sweaty brow while emptying a catheter, the nausea while dealing with a colostomy bag.

And even if every physical problem is addressed, the overwhelming hollowness remains: weeping in the car alone or staring at the ceiling in the middle of the night and wishing the shadows would somehow show the right next steps.

For some, prayer comes naturally in such crisis. In fact, sometimes we pray most fervently when “we have exhausted our store of endurance.” With nowhere else to turn, we cry out to God.

This is good. As all the lament Psalms make clear, God is ready to share our distress. Pain and heartbreak and overwhelming grief are the perfect times to pray. Prayer has never been more real for some than in such moments of crisis.

If we’ll follow the biblical pattern, though, we’ll not stop with our complaint. Keep reading this Psalm, for example, and you’ll discover David’s ending point: “How abundant are the good things that you have stored up for those who fear you, that you bestow in the sight of all, on those who take refuge in you.”

As Mark Vroegop has observed in Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy, this is the lament pattern found in many Psalms: (1) Turn to God, (2) Bring your complaint, (3) Ask boldly, and (4) Choose to trust.

This is how lament leads to comfort: Aim to end with trust. This is why we go to God with our grief. Although we hate it and feel overwhelmed by it, we decide and declare that God can handle it. And eventually, sometimes after several tries, we can experience the peace the psalmist expressed as he finished his lament: “Praise be to the Lord, for he showed me the wonders of his love.”

Read: Psalm 31
Listen: He Gives Us More Grace, by Acapeldridge
Pray: Be merciful to me, Lord, for I am in distress.