I need some kindness now, Yahweh.
I’m in a dark, dark place.
I can hardly see,
My eyes blurry from crying.
My body aches from stress. …
Sorrow devours me.
(Everyday Psalms, Psalm 31, page 64)
I’m too optimistic. I have a tendency to refuse to accept that anything is negative, always trying to make lemonade from the lemons I end up with. But that means I lie to myself about loss, refusing to grieve it. But prayer enables me to be honest about loss, come to terms with it, and settle into gratitude.
The hard reality is this: Reality is hard. Suffering is a regular experience in life. Physical pain gnaws at us. Relational rifts tear at us. Death rends us. Isaiah’s Suffering Servant, whom we associate with Jesus, was a “man of suffering, and familiar with pain” (Is. 53:3). Yes, even the Son of God himself doesn’t escape our sorrows.
Knowing that God understands suffering from the inside out and not just as an observer makes so much difference when we share our sufferings with him. He’s a companion. Yes, there are times to approach him as a healer and a savior and we come to him as such. But there are times when we simply need to come to him as a companion in our sufferings.
When my sister Joy was killed by a drunk driver, my family was crushed and so many in the surrounding community as well. More than 700 people gathered for her memorial, but as I sat there in the front row, my eyes barely left the cross hanging massively behind the pulpit. It was made of clean cut beams of wood. But in my grief, I didn’t need a polished empty cross. I needed an agonized Jesus hanging in mortal pain not just as our Savior, but as a co-sufferer. For the cross is proof that our Lord knows suffering personally and not just from above.
Now, I know some people feel like they shouldn’t pray for themselves. It seems selfish. But it’s not. These are core prayers. The Psalms are jam packed with them, teaching us how to articulate our sufferings.
If we don’t pray our pain, we run the risk of not getting to the other side of it. Because on the other side of grief is gratitude. When we have articulated what we have lost, when we come to terms with it, we come to the place where we can be truly thankful for what we’ve had. Our prayers of pain become prayers of thanksgiving. They don’t become so immediately or quick at all. But gratitude is the fruit of prayed pain.
When our lives are well-prayed, we feel the pain of our suffering appropriately — attempting to avoid the pain often prolongs it. When we’ve prayed the grief of our losses, the keenness of the cuts mellow into wisdom. The more we experience life as a gift in the midst of sorrow, the more we become a gift to those who suffer and grieve around us.
Prayer: God, this life holds so much pain and sometimes it just rips me apart. Thank you for not leaving me alone in it. I don’t know how to express my anguish and I sanitize my prayers, not wanting to complain too much. But you call me to be open and honest and to commit my riot of emotions to you. I’m so glad you don’t grow weary of hearing my sorrows. Thank you for meeting me at the bottom, Man of Sorrows. Be close to me and lead me through this. Amen.