Ending in Lament

I read through the Bible.  I start at one end and read through to the other end, and then I switch versions and do it again.  I read everything.  I read the stories of Jesus in the gospels and the weird mildew laws in Leviticus.  I even read the begats -- those long lists of names.  If my name was in those lists, I'd want someone to read it there, so I figure that they're worth reading.  Some of it's a bit tedious (if it's not heretical to say that parts of the Bible are tedious) but I read it all.  And some parts of it are just wonderful.

Like the Psalms.  That's where I am now.

And in that wonderful book there are Psalms that are especially dear to me:  Psalm 13, Psalm 18, Psalm 22, Psalm 73.  And Psalm 88.

They're all laments.  It is through the book of Psalms that I learned to cry.  It is through the Psalms that I learned that crying is ok.

That crying is, in fact, praise.

It's true.  The Hebrew title of the book of Psalms is "Praises".  And the book of praises is full of crying.  The single largest category of psalms in the book of Praises is lament.  People crying to God.  People yelling at God, questioning him, feeling abandoned by him, wrestling with him, asking him why, bawling out their eyeballs because life has gone horribly wrong.  But they're crying to God.  It's all wrapped around him.  That's what makes it praise.  Sometimes I praise God in my laughter; sometimes, I praise him in my tears.  But always, I am wrapping my life around him, and that's what makes it a life of praise.

So what about Psalm 88?  Why is it in Marianne's Top 10 List of Awesomest Psalms?  It's certainly not there because it's bright and cheery.

"For my soul is full of trouble and my life draws near the grave.

I am counted among those who go down to the pit; I am like a man without strength.

I am set apart with the dead, like the slain who lie in the grave, 

whom you remember no more, who are cut off from your care.

You have put me in the lowest pit, in the darkest depths.

Your wrath lies heavily upon me; you have overwhelmed me with all your waves."

It's the song of a soul in pain.  I get that.  I've been there.  I've gone through seasons where the pain is so bad I truly felt like it would kill me.  I couldn't eat.  I couldn't sleep.  I couldn't think.  I couldn't even really feel anything, except feel hurt in every fibre of my wounded being.  So I love that the psalm is honest.  I love that it gives me permission to feel that way and to be honest about it.

But mostly, what I love about this psalm is the end.

"Your wrath has swept over me; your terrors have destroyed me.

All day long they surround me like a flood; they have completely engulfed me.

You have taken my companions and loved ones from me; the darkness is my closest friend."

And that's it.  Boom.  The darkness is my closest friend.  The end.  And I love that.  I love that.

Psalm 88 is the only lament psalm in the whole psalter that ends without some kind of resolution.  All the others have a "turn", a "but" statement.  My life stinks, but you are good and I will trust you.  Things are really hard right now but I know the Lord will save me.  I can't tell which way is up, but it's all going to be ok in the end.  Weeping may last for the night, but joy comes in the morning.  They all have it.  Except Psalm 88.   And I'm glad for that.

I know it's true, those "buts".  I know God is good, and I know he can be trusted, and I know that he will save me, and I know that it will turn out ok in the end, and joy will come in the morning.  But there are seasons in life where it just doesn't turn around quite that quickly.  There are seasons of life with very, very long and lonely nights.  And without Psalm 88, I could start to feel guilty about those long nights of weeping.

Sometimes people expect "weeping for the night" to be kind of like a 1-hour TV show.  It's all a mess, and everything's horrible, but within the hour, everything is tidily wrapped up and they all lived happily ever after.  In the time it takes to read the psalm, I should be moving from lament to thanksgiving.  Just that quickly.  Fine, if you need to cry, cry, but get to the "but" in a big hurry.  We have no patience or tolerance for extended periods of grief.  We are so quick to slap on the guilt trip, to say, in hushed tones, "Oh, she's not doing so well.  She's still really struggling," sometimes only weeks after a major trauma, let alone months or even years.  If we allow lament at all, we feel so justified in ending it quickly; after all, the lament psalms end in trust!

Except then there's Psalm 88.  And Psalm 88 gives me permission to sit in the sadness and give the night of weeping the time it takes to dawn into a new day.  "Darkness is my closest friend."  Psalm 88 gives me permission to truly grieve.

To grieve, but not despair.  Because despair turns away from God, but there is not a single psalm anywhere in the book of Praises that turns away from God.  Psalm 88, in all its dark night of the soul, is focused solely on the One who can heal the broken heart.  It cries out to the LORD, the covenant God, the one who is I AM, the one who hears and who keeps his promises:  "O LORD!"  "O LORD, the God who saves me, day and night I cry out before you.  May my prayer come before you; turn your ear to my cry."    Grieving is not turning away from God or showing a lack of trust -- it is running right into his arms.  It is crying in the arms of the God Who Saves, the God Who Turns His Ear. The God who knows we trust him, not because we're not crying, but because we've brought him our tears.

I love the God who understands that sometimes nights of weeping last longer than the hours of physical darkness.

I love the God who Saves.

And who sits with me in the darkness, and holds me when I cry.

And that's why I love Psalm 88.