Hopeful Sorrow: Lamenting Your Painਨਮੂਨਾ

Asking for God’s Help

While lament involves articulating your suffering to God, it also asks God to intervene. To lament is to be aware of your human limitations in fixing or alleviating whatever need you have. Lament is a choice, and while that may sound daunting to the one struggling to find motivation within their depression, or a calm frame of mind in the midst of anxiety, lament fights feeling out of control by giving you agency. When we discover we have a voice in our suffering and use that voice to express our need to God, we feel heard, which lends itself to hope.

In 1 Samuel 1, we are introduced to Hannah, a woman who was desperate to have a child and attributed her infertility to the Creator. In her grief, she would weep and not eat. “‘Hannah, why are you crying?’ her husband, Elkanah, would ask. ‘Why won’t you eat? Why are you troubled? Am I not better to you than ten sons?’” (1 Samuel 1:8, ESV). One day, she turned to God and cried out in prayer. The emotions inside her do not point to a lack of faith because we see those emotions point her to the Father. “She was deeply distressed and prayed to the Lord and wept bitterly” (1 Samuel 1:10, ESV). When Eli, a priest, approached Hannah, accusing her of being drunk because of her passionate lament, she described herself by saying, “‘I am a woman with a broken heart. I haven’t had any wine or beer; I’ve been pouring out my heart before the Lord. Don’t think of me as a wicked woman; I’ve been praying from the depth of my anguish and resentment.’ Eli responded, ‘Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant the request you’ve made of him.’ ‘May your servant find favor with you,’ she replied. Then Hannah went on her way; she ate and no longer looked despondent” (1 Samuel 1:15b-18, ESV). After Hannah prayed, yet before she saw the outcome, she was able to eat again and no longer looked despondent, because she hadn’t yielded to it. Lamenting, for her, and for us too, turned her heart toward hope.

Hannah’s prayer reminds me of my own heart-crushing situations, encouraging me to run to God, even when He has allowed my sorrow. Hannah knew God could not only ease her pain, but that He could reverse her pain by giving her a child. “After some time, Hannah conceived and gave birth to a son. She named him Samuel, because she said, ‘I requested him from the Lord’” (1 Samuel 1:20, ESV).

The presence of distress does not equal a lack of faith or that someone has forsaken godliness. Even in her deep sadness, Hannah was a godly woman.