Processing Grief Through Lament

Lament is an old-fashioned word with modern day use. When the pain of grief is too hard to handle, scripture gives us the practice of processing grief through lament.

In my own grief after Dan died, I felt crushed by the ache of missing, heavy emotions, and demanding questions. My only relief was to take it to God. Every morning, I’d get my kids started for the day and then get alone in my minivan where I could pour out my heart.

Sometimes I cried out my grief and other times scrawled it out in my journal. After unburdening my heart to God, I’d open my Bible to that day’s reading and see once again God’s character and his promises. I had enough hope to make it through that day.

The rhythm I began in desperation I now know as the Biblical practice of lament. When life implodes in loss, when our pain is too much to bear, God has given us the language of lament.

What is Biblical Lament?

Lament is voicing our hardest emotions and questions to God, leaving them there, and choosing to trust God’s comfort and faithfulness. It shows up as quiet tears, audible cries, choking sobs, strident anger, and “groanings too deep for words.” But Biblical lament isn’t tears alone.

“Lament is a prayer in pain that leads to trust,” says Mark Vroegop. Though lament starts with hard emotions and hard questions, it doesn’t get stuck there. It’s “a path… through our brokenness and disappointment…from heartbreak to hope.”

While there’s no fixed prescription for lament, much like there’s no one way to pray, scripture gives us a pattern: take our pain to God, express honest emotion, trust God’s character and promises, and receive his comfort and hope.

5 Ways of Processing Grief Through Lament

1. Lament invites honest grief.

Jesus, the Man of Sorrows, understands every kind of pain we suffer this side of heaven. We don’t have to fake that we’re okay with God or put ourselves together to go to him. He already knows every ache, every sorrow we carry.

Lament is the most honest, raw expression of our grief with God. Our emotions might unsettle others but they never unsettle God. God who created us designed us with emotion. Naming our pain is the first step to processing it.

We see this when the psalmist cried out to God: “…my bones burn like red-hot coals. My heart is sick, withered like grass, and I have lost my appetite. Because of my groaning, I am reduced to skin and bones…I eat ashes for food. My tears run down into my drink.” (Psalm 102:3-5, 9, NLT)

2. Lament draws us to God.

There’s a difference between grieving and grumbling. In grief, we cry out to God but in grumbling we cry out against him. Even if we don’t feel God close in our pain, lament is a prayer believing that God is listening and he cares.

In Psalm 77, the psalmist turned to God for help: “I cried out to God for help; I cried out to God to hear me. When I was in distress, I sought the Lord…” (Psalm 77:1-2, NIV)

3. Lament leads to hope.

This is where lament pivots from anguish to expectancy, from distress to promise. When we draw close to God in lament, we re-anchor our hope in him. We remember his unchanging character and faithfulness, and reaffirm that God is in control and he alone has the last word over our circumstance.

Biblical lament isn’t blaming God or complaining about God. These are sinful attitudes against a holy God. But we can voice our complaints against injustice and evil as we look to God for help. In Psalm 25, David lamented about his enemies while also reaffirming his hope: “Relieve the troubles of my heart and free me from my anguish…because my hope, Lord, is in you.” (Psalm 25:17, 21, NIV)

4. Lament leads to comfort.

God longs to comfort us in our grief. When we turn to him and unburden the depth and breadth of our grief, he gives us his supernatural comfort. We see this in Hannah’s prayer in First Samuel. Hannah endured years of infertility and when her husband’s second wife, who had many children, cruelly taunted her, Hannah took her heartbreak to God at the tabernacle.

Hannah was deeply distressed and prayed with tears. “I’ve been pouring out my heart before the Lord…I’ve been praying from the depth of my anguish and resentment.” (1 Sam. 1:15-16, CSB) But her raw prayer of lament led to comfort. “Then the woman went her way and ate, and her face was no longer sad.”

5. Lament is a prayer of faith.

Ultimately, lament is grounded in faith that God is listening, that he cares, and that he is good even when life feels bad. Lament says, I am hurting, I wish this was different, but I trust you, God.

In David’s distress, he first questioned God: “How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?” But as David prayed through his circumstance, he declared his faith in God. “But I have trusted in your faithful love; my heart will rejoice in your deliverance.” (Psalm 13:5, CSB)

The more I study lament expressed in God’s Word, the more I see God’s kindness to give us a way to process the pain of this world that’s too hard to bear. It’s one more way God is with us as we walk through suffering.