How to Lament With God: Finding Healing Through Honest Prayer
Years ago, a friend encouraged me to lament with God after a difficult loss in my life. “It’s important to let all these feelings out because they can lead to bitterness toward God if you hold them in. Tell him what you’re feeling. He can take it,” she said.
Taking her advice, I went to the woods on a snowy winter evening. I let the tears flow as I sat along a quiet stream.
I also let my anger out as I threw rocks into the water and told God that what happened didn’t seem fair. Verbalizing my anger, frustration, and confusion, I didn’t hold anything back from him.
After an hour of releasing my emotions, I felt physically exhausted. I sat on the sandy shoreline of the creek, closed my eyes, and breathed deeply.
Lament With God for Healing
As my breathing slowed, I realized something surprising. I was no longer angry with God or frustrated. I was still sad, but the bitterness that had been growing in my heart was gone. The healing process of grieving my loss with God had begun by lamenting in his presence.
It took a long time for the sadness to lose its sting, but that evening by the stream was a turning point. Lamenting with God helped me resist the temptation to hold my loss against him, and releasing my emotions with him led me to a level of peace that was deeply healing.
What Is Lament
Today’s culture doesn’t use the word “lament” very often. Lamentation is the act of releasing our emotions in times of loss and sadness. We lament with God by telling him everything we’re feeling. We might cry, ask God all our difficult questions, and even yell as a way of releasing our pent-up emotions.
The Bible is filled with laments. Psalms 13 and 42 are good examples of lamentation.
In Psalm 13, David begins with these words:
“How long, Lord? Will You forget me forever?
How long will You hide Your face from me?
With grief in my heart all the day?
How long will my enemy be exalted over me?” (Psalm 13:1-2).
In Psalm 42, we read the following words of lament:
“My tears have been my food day and night,
While they say to me all day long, ‘Where is your God?’
I remember these things and pour out my soul within me” (Psalm 42:3-4).
Those of us who have walked through the deep waters of grief can relate with the words of both Psalms.
Why It’s Important to Lament With God
Lamentation is important because it helps us process our grief with God instead of running from it, numbing ourselves, or burying it. In the process of bringing God our pain, our relationship with him grows. We learn how to trust him in our suffering.
God is a good Father. He welcomes our honesty and can handle even our darkest and most overwhelming negative emotions. He is our Healer. Bringing him our pain is like bringing a broken body to the physician.
God is a good Father. He welcomes our honesty and can handle even our darkest and most overwhelming negative emotions. #healing #God #lament Share on XSteps to Help You Lament With God
Here are several ways to lament with God.
First, choose to turn to God in your pain instead of turning away from him.
Second, express your emotions with honesty and vulnerability. Don’t try to protect God from your ugly emotions. He wants to help you.
Third, ask God to help you trust him. He is waiting to answer this prayer. Recognize that you probably won’t find immediate answers to your questions. Instead, lamenting with God helps you lift your eyes to him and focus on him in difficult times.
God can handle our emotions. He wants us to open our hearts to him when we are hurting, and this process helps us move toward healing. Do you need to lament with the Lord today?
Pursuing Inner Healing Through Lamentation
Ask God to show you if there are any difficult emotions buried in your heart today. If God brings something to mind, try to carve out some time this week to go to a quiet place and tell him everything that’s on your heart. Express every emotion. God can handle it. He waits with open arms.
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As the parent of two sons and a daughter, I have a heart for helping parents develop deeper relationships with their children and with God. Our kids, ages 6, 11, and 14, share this vision. They have helped me write three family devotionals for parents or grandparents to read with the children they care about.
God’s Warrior: Devotions for Boys Who Want to Grow in Courage and Strength is for boys ages 5-13. Now, more than ever, our world needs men who are willing to courageously carry God’s love into the world. Written with input from our two young sons, Aiden and Caleb, ages six and eleven, this book will help the boys you care about find courage and strength in God. Find this life-changing devotional book here.
Devotionals for Girls
Girl to Girl: 60 Mother-Daughter Devotions for a Closer Relationship and Deeper Faith is written for girls ages 7-12. It includes 60 devotions with Scripture, conversation starters, and a shared journaling section for moms and daughters after each devotion. I wrote this book with the help of our daughter, Bekah, when she was eleven. Find this one-of-a-kind shared devotional here.
Heart to Heart: A Mother-Daughter Devotional With 50 Devotions for Teen Girls is for teenage girls ages 13-20. It includes 50 devotions, each with a shared journaling section to help moms and daughters connect through writing. This is a great book for moms who want to communicate about awkward topics—like dating, sexuality, peer pressure, and more—but don’t know where to start. Bekah and I will help you right here.
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