Don’t Just Cry – Go Ahead and Lament

August 19, 2021

I turned around to look at our 2-year-old daughter in the backseat as I heard her telling herself, “Don’t cry.”

“Oh baby, you can cry when you’re sad or mad or upset,” I said. “In fact, I want you to cry when you feel that way.”

I realized just how much I wanted to comfort my daughter, how I felt sad to see her trying to stuff her emotions back down. Turning to my husband, I suggested that we use the phrase “don’t cry” sparingly. Maybe we were saying it more than we realized, trying to comfort her by saying something like, “Don’t cry, it’s okay.” Instead, we realized that we needed to allow her to cry, and then to come to us for comfort.

Fifteen minutes later, we arrived home from our errands, and I was happy to see a package on the porch with my name on it. As soon as we settled ourselves in our living room, I opened the package to discover a gift from a friend who experienced a pregnancy loss the same week I did. She had sent me a copy of a book that was ministering to her in her grief, and I sat and immediately began reading it. Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy: Discovering the Grace of Lament by Mark Vroegop began with the author sharing about the stillbirth of his daughter.

Although I don’t recall what my toddler was trying to not cry about that afternoon, without a doubt the source of my tears around that time was the shocking stillbirth of our son, who died just weeks before Christmas in 2020. Shortly after our stillbirth, I had an especially difficult day, weeping because I missed my baby. That afternoon I walked down the street with my mom to introduce her to my friend. As we chatted in the driveway, I fought tears, saying, “I don’t want to cry.” But who better to see my tears than my mom and my dear friend? We need to be free to cry in our pain and distress, to not hide our tears… even in our prayers.

I’ve been slowly reading Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy: Discovering the Grace of Lament, and I am learning to lament through sorrow. Mark Vroegop writes about the value of lamenting – weeping, crying out to God, grieving, mourning. He says that to cry is human, but to lament is Christian. Lamenting is essentially expressing our grief and pain while also expressing our trust and hope in God. For example, we could pray something like this: “God, this situation really sucks. I wish it weren’t this way. But I know that you are good and faithful and true, so I will keep trusting you.”

He writes that lament “gives a [grieving] person permission to wrestle with sorrow instead of rushing to end it.” He also describes lament as a way to deal with the tension between life’s hardships and God’s goodness. “It is an opportunity to remind our hearts about God’s faithfulness in the past, especially when the immediate events of life are overwhelmingly negative. While we’re still in pain, lament reminds our hearts of what we believe to be true.” These prayers of lament, with many biblical examples in Psalms and Lamentations, give us a way to express grief, sadness, and mourning yet also put our hope and trust in God.

We can pray this way through many hardships in our lives, whether we’re grieving because of the loss of a child, suffering because of the pandemic, or weeping over the terrible things happening in Afghanistan right now. Those are three of the topics on my mind right now. Another book that has ministered to me in recent years is Suffering is Never for Nothing by Elisabeth Elliot. (I shared a few thoughts about that book in this blog post.) She defines suffering as “having what you don’t want or wanting what you don’t have.” No matter what you’re going through right now, you’re likely experiencing some sort of suffering.

Edited to add in October 2024: Another excellent book about lament that I recommend is Walking Through Grief: Finding Hope and Healing in the Psalms of Lament by Mark Medley.

As a parent, I care deeply about my precious young daughter when she feels sad. I don’t want her to suppress tears when she is struggling. I want to say, “Come, cry in my arms, let me comfort you, let me help you feel better.” Our Heavenly Father is a much better parent than I am. He created our emotions. He knows our current circumstances, He sees all the world events, and He sees the big picture. He wants us to come to Him with our pain and with our trust. And He gives us the opportunity to lament.