LAMENTATION IN A STRANGE LAND

“How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?”  (Psalm 137:4 KJV)

Depression is widespread, but troubles are universal. People have always suffered, still suffer, ill health and broken hearts, bereavement and betrayal, financial and vocational woes. Sometimes these troubles keep us from praying. Often they drive us to prayer.

Our personal or social difficulties may be dramatic or extreme -- life-threatening illness, becoming unemployed, victims of crime. But there are many other circumstances, some of them curses of the present age, that can reduce us to states of desolation: the sheer overload of the lives of working adults, particularly if they are also parents, the despair of youth, the isolation of our elders, or the social dislocation that leads to loneliness and lack of a primary community. Many of us find ourselves in a strange land both figuratively and literally...

The prayer of lamentation is a venerable tradition: we name the suffering and groan prayerfully (or not so prayerfully), inwardly or aloud, because that is all we can do at the time. Sometimes there is no naming, only a moan…

We find hope inside our tears; yet only inside our tears could we find hope. “Have hope in God; I will yet praise Him, my everpresent Help, my God.”  (Psalm 42:12)

-- Adapted from “When In Doubt, Sing: Prayer In Daily Life” by Jane Redmont

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