How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?
    How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
    and day after day have sorrow in my heart?
    How long will my enemy triumph over me?

Last night our church gathered to lament. They encouraged us to think of bad things that have happened in our lives.

At first it was interesting. I don’t remember doing this before, at least not recently. I’ve often gone through hurts that I need to do something about: forgive, reconcile, confront, etc. But this was just listing pain without action. My mind flowed from sorrow to sorrow: broken relationships, dashed hopes, physical injuries, friends’ suffering,….

Then it got depressing. So much suffering. I’m like “whoa! this is not a happy place”. Alarm bells in my soul. Danger! Danger! Think a happy thought. You may not get out of this spiral of negative emotion. What’s down there anyway?

Look on me and answer, Lord my God.
    Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death,
and my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,”
    and my foes will rejoice when I fall.

I pressed on, thinking of the poverty I’ve seen in my travels, the homeless people I’ve met, the shells exploding all through the night in Ukraine, the hopelessness of alcoholism running through a whole village, people without food, without clean water, dogs running through the hospital rooms.

Then I thought of all the ways I’ve caused pain to others through my insensitivity, arrogance, religiosity, ambition, ignorance, selfishness, fear and pride. Oh no. Everyone’s in pain, and everyone is causing pain. Now what?

But I trust in your unfailing love;
    my heart rejoices in your salvation.
I will sing the Lord’s praise,
    for he has been good to me.

Somehow getting a glimpse of the magnitude of the problem of pain made it lighter. Clearly I can’t even begin to tackle this. But God’s not intimidated. He is the ruler of the universe. He’s got this.