“Lament is the art of trusting God no matter what He gives,
no matter what He takes.” ~ Aubrey Sampson
We’ve all lost someone close to us at one time or another, or at least we have known great loss in some way. It’s almost as hard when we know someone close to us who has experienced a great loss and is in utter grief.
It isn't necessary to try to fix someone’s grief, as Job’s friends tried to do, or to encourage the person to try and get over it and back to normal as quickly as possible. Our purpose is to be completely and compassionately present with them in that moment, in that short or long time spent with them. It is good to “lament” with them, to grieve with them.
In the book A Grief Observed, the author C.S. Lewis, bears his soul in raw emotion and grief after loosing his beloved wife, Joy, to cancer. Their brief, intensely happy years together left him naturally inconsolable, even angry. It is obvious that he expressed true Lament when he gave not only his grief but his anger, his frustration and loss eventually over to God in final trust.
In the recent movie Mary Poppins Returns, Mary Poppins tries to console the Blunt children in a most beautifully touching song after they experienced the loss of their mother the year before.
“Do you ever lie awake at night
Just between the dark and the morning light
Searching for the things you used to know
Looking for the place
Where the lost things go?
Do you ever dream or reminisce
Wondering where to find, what you truly miss?
Well, maybe all those things that you love so
Are waiting in the place
Where the lost things go.
Memories you’ve shed, gone for good you feared
They’re all around you still, though they’ve disappeared.
Nothing is really left or lost without a trace.
Nothing’s gone forever,
Only out of place”
Lament is Trust and Trust brings Hope ~ that all will be well.
And in it’s time, it will.
~ Gwen of IRISH ACRES
