Another Slice

Was going through my mail account, and I came across this slice entitled “Permission to Lament”. It was quite interesting read.

The below quote resonates with me:

“Sadly dissimilar to many of worship services, the writers of Scripture identify with the pain of the world and do not hold back in addressing it …. [At the funeral of a loved one], I desperately needed permission to lament. I needed to be able to ask why with the force that was welling up inside me, even as I clung to the resurrection of the Son and trust in the Father."

Earlier the writer describes how after 9-11, Matt Redman commented “we had a few expressions of hope at out disposal, but when it came to expressions of pain and lament, we had very little vocabulary to give voice to our hearts cries”, or put another way “The world we live in is not as it was intended to be, and our worship must not deny this.”

I think its this reason that Lament is one of my favourite Christian songs, (It's on a CD Great is Your Love, produced at St Paul's Castle Hill), and the words are below:

O Lord the God who saves me
Day and night I cry to you
My words fly out into the air
Seemingly unanswered
Why are you so silent
Why so little comfort
As I fall into the pit again
Deep into the pit again

Darkness is my only friend
When will all this suffering end
Fear consumes me and I try
To stumble to the distant light

Where are you Lord, in the sadness
Where are you when I feel so alone
I try to find you, where are you hiding
I can’t make any sense of the pain I’m in
My tears are my food all day and night
And I’m running out of strength to fight
Father God please carry me on your shoulders
Take me through the valley to the other side

Where are you Lord, in the sadness
Where are you when I feel so alone
I try to find you, where are you hiding
I can’t make any sense of the pain I’m in
My tears are my food all day and night
And I’m running out of strength to fight
Father God please carry me on your shoulders
Take me through the valley to the other side

Nicole Schleicher, 1997

+++

Summer and winter, and springtime and harvest
Sun, moon and stars, In their courses above
Join with all manifold witness
To thy great faithfulness, mercy and love.

Great is thy faithfulness, Great is thy faithfulness
Morning by morning, new mercies I see
All I have needed, thy hand hast provided
Great is thy faithfulness Lord unto me.