Lamenting My Divorce
Over two years ago, I experienced one of the most earth-shattering moments of my life: a divorce. Some describe it as the funeral that never ends. I went from having a beloved family to suddenly having nothing. I felt betrayed and hurt. I couldn’t think straight or even breathe at times.
Questions haunted me. What can I do to fix this? What am I going to do without my best friend? How will the kids take this? Am I going to lose my kids? Will I be able to continue in the vocational call God marked for me? I tried to retrace my steps, make a list of mistakes I made, and identify the blind spots that led to this moment. But my obsession to make sense of things only left me with more questions and painful emotions.
No words could express the pain I felt. No wisdom could stop the anger and bitterness that bled from me. Was it wrong to feel this way? Was I supposed to stop the tears, box my sorrows and emotions? Not at all. In God’s incredible grace, lamenting drew me closer to him.
LAMENTING WITH OTHERS
I initially processed the divorce with anyone who’d listen but soon discovered that impatient words spoken with good intentions are still like salt in a wound. Like Job’s friends, they had mistaken problem solving for empathy. I understand it isn’t easy to be ‘quick to listen’ and ‘slow to speak’. The idea of sitting in the hurt with the grieving can be challenging in a culture accustomed to quick fixes and easy solutions. We were taught that we need words in order to minister. But that’s simply not true. It’s quite the opposite. The art of listening is one of the greatest ministries we can provide as believers.
God gifted me with family members, close friends, and a church community to grieve with me. They called to check on me, gathered around to pray for me, sat quietly with me in order to weep with me. Some asked if they could join me in fasting and prayer. Others did a Bible reading plan with me. But their greatest gift was their willingness to listen.
Lamenting with others proved invaluable for my healing and restoration. But it wasn’t just this community. I found hope through a cloud of witnesses who had also found healing through lamenting.
LAMENTING IN THE BIBLE
Jeremiah’s lament gives us a blueprint to process grief in a way that honors God and is healing for us.
“I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of God’s wrath. He has driven me away and forced me to walk in darkness instead of light. Yes, he repeatedly turns his hand against me all day long. He has laid siege against me, encircling me with bitterness and hardship. Even when I cry out and plead for help, he blocks out my prayer. He has walled in my ways with blocks of stone;
He has made my paths crooked. He is a bear waiting in ambush, a lion in hiding. He forced me off my way and tore me to pieces; he left me desolate. He strung his bow and set me as the target for his arrow. I am a laughingstock to all my people…He filled me with bitterness, satiated me with wormwood. Then I thought, “My future is lost, as well as my hope from the Lord.”” (Lamentations 3:1-18 CSB)
Some of Jeremiah’s words strike us as being unspiritual. But these words offer us permission to rend our hearts when we grieve loss in our lives. I’ve always believed that there was no longer any condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. However, in my pain, I doubted if God loved me. Was God’s word true when He said that He was for me and not against me? How could I be so angry with God and hope he would never abandon me at the same time? Jeremiah helped ‘theologize’ the polarity of my emotions as I kept reading this lament.
“Yet I call this to mind, and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s faithful [steadfast] love we do not perish, for his mercies never end. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness! I say, “The Lord is my portion, therefore I will put my hope in him.” The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the person who seeks him.” (Lamentations 3:21-25 CSB)
Despite all of Jeremiah’s complaints, he still hoped in God’s steadfast love. And it was the long, slow process of hoping in God’s steadfast love that gave me life. Daylight slowly seeped into the dark night of my soul. The depression broke. The pain surrendered to the steadfast love of the Lord. His goodness was always true, and always remained even when I couldn’t see it.
Biblical lament is not just about being honest. Anyone can do that. Lament is the spirit-enabled prompting to express both our raw pain and our eventual ability to hope in the steadfast love of the Lord. We don’t have to be alone in that. A community can help us lament by listening to us. And we can find hope by listening as well, to the saints who have gone before us, who teach us that lamenting can draw us closer to God, as we learn to grieve yet hope in the steadfast love of the Lord.
Daine is a father to Chloe, Jonas, and Owen. With a background in pastoral ministry, he currently works in the field of cancer care. In his free time you will find Daine on the tennis court or a coffee house.