The Warm, Cozy Hug of Lament
“Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God.”
“Society teaches us that having feelings and crying is bad and wrong. Well, that’s baloney, because grief isn’t wrong. There’s such a thing as good grief, just ask Charlie Brown!”
A couple of days after we were given the news that we couldn’t get pregnant without IVF, Brooke and I went to watch The Greatest Showman. I’m usually not one for musicals (having watched so very few in my life, lacking general interest to watch them), but I enjoyed this one. Maybe it was the upbeat, modern music and non-operatic vibe it gave or maybe it was the diverse cast that made the movie. In any case, it sits nicely perched at the top (of a very short list) of my all-time favorite musicals. To this day, I sometimes find myself humming “Come Alive” while I’m walking around campus.
There is one scene, however, that left a bitter taste in our mouths when we watched the movie. It’s the scene toward the beginning where P.T. Barnum (Hugh Jackman) and his wife, Charity (Michelle Williams), are trying to figure out how to make ends meet. P.T. comes home to a bare apartment with Charity sitting on a blanket looking dreamily out the window. They begin dancing and singing “A Million Dreams”, running along the rooftop through hung bedsheets, playing a cat-and-mouse game, and spinning each other lovingly because what else would you do when you’re dirt poor? They come to a stop and rest and we see that Charity is pregnant with the first of the Barnum kids.
Now, I know it’s a movie and most movies (and TV shows, for that matter) rarely depict life as it actually is, but in that moment, it stung a little to see that. Hearing news of infertility and then seeing a romanticized version of pregnancy happen with little-to-no effort (as depicted by the movie and obviously to keep its PG rating) felt like The Greatest Showman was reaching through the silver screen, pinching our cheeks, and saying, “See? Look how easy it is.”
After the movie was over, we made chit-chat about the parts we liked, but we both knew we were thinking about the scene toward the beginning. After all, we were newbies in this whole thing about not being able to conceive, so there were no known ways to us how to rightfully process the grief of an out-of-stock miracle.
If there were no known ways to us, could we expect those close to us to have some special kind of salve to cover these festering wounds? Could our friends understand? Could our families provide some words of comfort and understanding? Would the Lord see us in our plight and send some divine healing and make a way forward for us?
Yes, the Lord would intervene, but not before sending a guest to stay with us for a while.
One day, our questioning thoughts of infertility and grief were interrupted by an unexpected knock at the door. I’m not sure when or where they came from, but an elderly, broad-shouldered figure stood on our apartment landing. Shrouded in a long black cloak with a matching veil to cover their face, they gently walked in, two overnight bags in tow. My wife and I didn’t know what to make of this unexpected guest, but strangely felt like they had been sent here on assignment for us.
The bags dropped on the floor, not with a thud, but with a rubbery sound - almost as if there were nothing in them. The figure raised and lifted off the veil and we saw strands of gray fall to the shoulders. The black cloak came up and off next, revealing a sturdy, broad-shouldered, elderly woman. Dressed in colors opposite of what she’d just removed, she wore a white blouse with pink poinsettias on it. Her pants were bleach white, like she had worked tirelessly in her younger years in some very dirty jobs and the only way to remove the stains of such work was to throw them in the wash with bleach. Her feet were covered with fluffy house-slippers, giving the impression that if she were going to be on the move and seeing people her feet would be comfy.
She looked at the both of us, walked over toward us as our old 2nd story floorboards creaked beneath her weight and wrapped her arms around us. What I thought would be a crushing embrace, as elderly people tend to do at times, turned out to be the opposite. It was like just coming in from a downpour, cold and marginally wet, and being wrapped in a cozy, warm blanket and being offered a cup of hot tea (with milk and sugar, of course).
I no longer felt like this stranger wasn’t supposed to be here. It was as if she knew all about us.
She let go of us and gave something of a half-smile and said in a genteel voice, “My name is Lament. I’ll be staying here for a little while.”
In Surprised by Paradox, Jen Pollock Michels writes, “The impolitic plea, or lament, is an ancient prayer tradition in the Bible. In language that seems hardly admissible in God’s throne room, as men and women pray to God, they try making faithful sense of the mystery of their suffering—and the love of God in the worst of circumstances.”
Knowing “the love of God in the worst of circumstances” was realizing that as painful as it was to acknowledge our lives would not look like what we had hoped for, dreamed of, imagined when we pledged our love for one another, God wasn’t about to go anywhere. He didn’t look down on us and think, “Well, that certainly sucks for Seth and Brooke. I’m out. Deuces!” Instead, God met us in our trouble and drew us into Himself.
Michels goes on to explain that, while the biblical narrative will ultimately end happy, there is a lot of pain and trouble that takes place in the lives of those who have fellowship with God. In other words, it’s not all rose gardens and beach sunsets (it’s not all “gloom and doom”, either.) Fellowship with God takes the troubles we face and gives us the prayer language we need to voice those troubles to God. That prayer language we’ve been given is called lament and the Psalms are chock-full of them.
There are more psalms of lament and grief than there are of thanksgiving and praise. For example:
“O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest.”
“The Message” translation puts it this way, “Doubled up with pain, I call to God all the day long. No answer. Nothing. I keep at it all night, tossing and turning.”
The author of many of these types of psalms, David, is no stranger to the lonely, dusty road of lament. Losing family, friends, and a kingdom, David’s words in the Psalms are timeless. When we read through these words ourselves, we can give ourselves permission to not only read and speak the words but feel them, too.
Lament is the valve that lets our tears fall without condemnation. It tunes our vocal cords so we can wail. And, strange as it may sound, there is something comforting about all of this: knowing you are not crazy, that there is a multi-faceted way to express this pain and grief, and that you’re not the first to be dealt such a poopy hand. Yes, there is comfort in all this.
Almost like feeling a warm, cozy hug.
The peace of our Lord,
Seth
(I referenced the book, Surprised by Paradox by Jen Pollock Michels in this post. Her chapters on lament is spot on and has challenged me personally to broaden my thoughts and view on lament.)
