“You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand there are pleasures forevermore.” Psalm 16:11
During Lent this year, our church* has been gathering together (via Zoom) to “practice lament”. This is an intimidating idea to most people: gathering with others with the sole purpose of being sad together. (Letting ourselves be sad when we’re alone is scary enough!) It sounds completely outside our comfort zones and honestly, maybe, rather pointless. Why should we just take time to be sad? And why magnify the sadness by hearing about everyone else’s?
But surprisingly that’s not what happens. The sadness doesn’t feel magnified. And suddenly we don’t feel so alone.
I am not a pastor or a leader of these groups. I am a participant, and in speaking to other participants I’ve heard things like “I feel so heard”, “I feel so connected to the community”, “I feel hopeful and safe here.” To hear these statements, a year after the world fell apart, and during/after a gathering on lament, is absolutely profound.
Our pastor often talks about lament being God’s good gift to us in our healing journey. “Lament”, as opposed to just “sadness”, is offering up our sadness to God. And I would add we offer up our sadness to God in expectation - we want to know what He is going to do about it! Sometimes we get an answer, sometimes we don’t. But it is the process, not the answer, that is important.
I can’t help but think of the Pixar movie, Inside Out.** Joy spends the whole movie trying to keep Sadness away from the control board of Riley’s mind. Riley is even commended for her positive outlook, even when things are hard. But in the end, it isn’t Joy who saves the day. Joy finally realizes that the only path to healing Riley is by letting Sadness do her job and take control for a little while. Only when Riley is finally able to express her Sadness, Joy can reenter the picture. And at the end, there is a beautiful picture of Joy and Sadness, hand-in-hand on the control board of Riley’s mind, as Riley snuggles her parents.
What a stunning picture of Sadness and Joy, co-mingling in healing. The two often have to work together. There is no life without sadness because our world is broken. Unless we know how to find joy in and through sadness, we will have no hope.
We have to learn how to find the joy in the sadness.
I am constantly reminded of this scene when I “practice lament” with others at my church.
But what’s even better is that we as Christians are not alone with our sadness. Not only do we have each other, we have a God who weeps with us. And as we lift our sadness up to God in lament, He meets us right where we are.
So I am saying this to you and I am saying this to myself: please, please stop fearing sadness. It is scary to just let ourselves be sad, because what if it breaks us? What if we can’t ever be happy again? But offer your sadness to God and He will meet you in it.
He came down to earth and experienced suffering first-hand. This is the week we remember Jesus’ journey to the cross, the ultimate in suffering and sacrifice. Meet Him in this suffering. Let yourselves be sad, offer it up as lament, and He will set you on the path of healing to acceptance, to abundance, to joy, and ultimately, the path to Life.
*Church of the Apostles, Bridgeport, CT. Most of what is written here is what I’ve learned there. Except with less Pixar.
**Why do Pixar movies always make it into my blog posts? Let’s pretend it’s because I work with children - but it’s actually just because I think they are phenomenal! And full of good, deep lessons on life!