Embracing Lament: God’s still there, no matter how long we’re waiting

The psalmist’s question seems fashioned with Alzheimer’s caregivers in mind: “How long, Lord? . . . How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart?”

How long must I watch the sufferer before me wither away? How can I continue to bear the pain of witnessing this slow erosion? How little will be left of them by the time this is finally finished?

And when will I have learned to accept this reality? When will I enjoy looking at old pictures again? When will I move forward in this, my new life, instead of focusing on all the relationship and partnership I’m losing?

Casting Crowns has recorded a contemporary companion to the psalm: “I was sure by now God, You would have reached down and wiped our tears away, stepped in and saved the day.”

But alas, the loss remains and the tears return—surprising, unbidden, unwanted.

These are the days—and weeks and months—for lament. The watching and waiting for an end becomes depressing and then exhausting. But we need not crumple in a corner alone, trying to keep our uncertainty and longing and pain to ourselves.

We need not crumple in a corner alone.

This is the time to look at our dreadful slog through a long goodbye and tell God (we may be afraid to tell anyone else), “I just wish this was over.”

In today’s psalm, as well as many other Psalms of Lament, we discover permission to be honest with God, but that’s not all. These few verses illustrate a pattern described by Mark Vroegop, a pattern we’ll note again and again as we learn to embrace lament. The pattern is a pathway to hope.

First, the psalmist lays out his complaint; next, he tells what he wishes God would do.  And then, finally, he acknowledges that God is God and he must let him move and act according to his timetable and his will. He remembers God’s goodness in the past and claims it as a reasonable basis for hope in the future. “I will sing the Lord’s praise, for he has been good to me.”

Maybe it would be helpful to find a tablet or open a computer and list all the ways God has been good to us. And then, after laying on God all our legitimate reasons for distress, maybe our list will lead us, as it did the psalmist, to praise.

Read: Psalm 13

Listen: “Praise You in This Storm,” by Casting Crowns

Pray: “Lord, . . . believing the promise of your presence in my suffering takes time, and grows slowly, through stages in prayer. So I will pray until my heart rejoices in you.”

(Prayer adapted from p, 19, The Songs of Jesus, A Year of Daily Devotions in the Psalms, by Timothy Keller with Kathy Keller).