Earlier this week, I wrote about our human need, as souls encased in skin and bones, of the practice of lament. To lament is to be real with our circumstances, and our God. It is to acknowledge our frailty.
“Weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.”
Psalm 30:5
As the Psalmist indicates clearly, mourning is not without end. That is the hope of night, that the darkness that accompanies our lamenting, does eventually give way to the dawn of morning.
Right now I can think of a number of people who are in the midst of a time of lamenting, of mourning, and they cannot even dream of rejoicing or of a bright morning.
- the family, mourning the loss of their child, gone too soon
- the husband, holding the hand of his preschooler in one hand, and that of his dying wife, in his other
- the woman whose husband has abandoned both she and their daughter, as well as been challenged by health problems and inability to work
Yet, that morning is coming. We do not know when it will come, but come it will.
As the third chapter of Ecclesiastes (v.4) reminds us there is:
“a time to weep and a time to laugh
a time to mourn and a time to dance”
I remember a night. I remember that darkness was everywhere … every where. I remember that everything, from the smallest things, were falling, failing. I remember standing in my backyard, sun’s beams pouring through the branches of the trees in front and above me. I remember crying, praying, begging for relief, just one sunbeam of hope to fall upon me. Then, moments later, as I set myself back to my yard work, I caught my leg on a nail, ripping my pants, my flesh … blood falling from me, releasing my tears, yet again. There was no quick relief, there was no quick end to my lament.
My hope was that “joy would come in the morning” …
We need to remember that the passing of night to day is not the same as with God. The lamenting will end, but we do not know when that will be. The God who divided day from night, will bring an end to mourning.
“There never was night that had no morn.”
Dinah Mulock Craik
itsawonderfilledlife 