[A guest post from Restoration member Laura Praske]
My Covid-19 story starts with 28 mint green post-its on the frame of my daughter’s window. Each post-it represented a day until her braces would be removed, the count down until apples and caramel (referenced daily in our home!). There was one post-it left when Governor Walz announced the shut-down order and we received an email from the orthodontist saying their office was closed and all appointments were cancelled. Next came the cancellation of my daughter’s special 6th grade trip, the cancellation of a trip to Iowa to see my dad who has been recovering from a heart attack, and the staleness of a violin recital over Zoom. Perhaps, like me, your list of laments is increasing. We long for what could have been.
Ann Voskamp, who recently spoke virtually at the Q conference said, “To hurt is human, to lament is healing…the lyric of lament is the song of the strong.” What does it mean to lament? Noah Webster’s American Dictionary of the English Language defines lament as: to mourn, to grieve, to weep or wail, to express sorrow, to regret deeply. Voskamp encourages us to make space for lament so we can bring motion to pain, move stress through our souls, and orient toward God. We have much to lament and lament we should.
Voskamp reminds us that life is not a straight-line, steady ascent from strength to strength, rather it is a repetitive “W” of rising and dying, crests and depths, peaks and valleys. For many of us this is a season of dying, depths, and valleys. While we are no longer in the actual church season of Lent, our spiritual lives may have stalled out in the season of Lent - in a valley, in a state of longing. The giving up continues, and possibly even expands. Perhaps we are experiencing an extended season of penitence. The extra stress we are experiencing exposes our ungodly coping habits; habits that fail to result in solace for our souls. Close quarters or increased responsibilities reveal our short temper. Unrealized hopes turn into complaining, crushing our spirit. Our fears make us restless and sleepless; we find it hard to trust God.
Last Sunday, during worship, we read from 1 Peter chapter 1 and studied the juxtaposition of the living hope we have in Jesus with the grief of trials. How can these two totally different things happen at the same time? Is the syncing of our hope with our trials is the very thing we need to strengthen our faith? Perhaps now is the time to:
start a new spiritual discipline: Bible reading, morning/evening prayer, or scripture memory (Joshua 1:8, Isaiah 26:3, Romans 15:13)
express our laments – in a journal, poem, song, drawing or a good cry
list God’s provision and faithfulness in the storm
confess our sin, and if needed not just to God, but to someone else who can help us take God’s provision of a way out (1 Corinthians 10:13)
Our Covid-19 stories are not over yet. Voskamp says, “God knows how to create good things out of chaos.” She reminds us that through lament and repentance we have an opportunity to reorient to our Creator, the light above the storm. She encourages us to “not give up but give over, where then we are given the strength to overcome.” Though our souls may feel stalled in Lent, Easter has come, Christ has overcome, and Jesus has shown himself trustworthy with our lament.
