Wednesday Dec 06

It was a brisk winter afternoon in Durham. I was having a nice lunch at Duke with my in-laws who were visiting from out of state. Two bites into my lunch, I saw I had multiple missed calls from both my dad and my sister. The notifications left me oddly confused. I calmly picked up the phone and called my sister back.

Screaming, tears, and anguish awaited me on the other end of the call. “He’s gone, they took him” These are words I will never forget hearing in my sister’s voice. “He” was my sister’s 3-year-old boy. “They” were the paramedics who drove the ambulance off the property. Even though I wasn’t there to see the scene my sister described, I could feel it. I still see it in my memory now, a parent’s worst nightmare of going to wake your child up on a sunny Friday morning to find out your life has been changed forever.

I had grown up in the church. I even traveled often to help rebuild communities in despair and pray with those in need. But I had never truly felt lament until that brisk winter afternoon. I realized then my faith was rooted in deep American triumphalism, or what Rachel Held Evans calls in her book Inspired “optimism rooted in success, money, and privilege. Having been raised to use the Bible as a book of clear answers, I was at a loss when my father asked me, “Why does God take children away?”

It was this experience and that question from my father that left me much like David. I experienced deep-rooted & angry prayer, asking God, “How?”

The greatest takeaway I have from my lament is that the “unfailing love” I experienced was not some out-of-body spiritual moment I had one day. It was The Gathering Church living out its mission authentically. It was friends watching our dog for nearly 3 weeks. It was constant calls and texts from church leaders. It was a community of God’s people who allowed me to authentically lament and weep. It was a church community that allowed me to wrestle with my faith with unwavering support and loving arms.

This Psalm reminds me of two major things. The first is that life can get pretty dark. The second is that God’s light is made known through the incredible human beings that surround us. With all of the suffering we experience, I am forever grateful for the folks who have loved me and others incredibly well, just as Jesus did.

In Soong-Chan Rah’s book Prophetic Lament, he explains, “The absence of lament in the liturgy of the American church results in a loss of memory. We forget the necessity of lamenting over suffering and pain. We forget the reality of suffering and pain.”

Let us not forget this reality as we continue to love others in their journey of laments and joys.

Who is someone you’ve seen God’s light shine in recently?