The Sacred Invitation of Lent: How the Freedom to Lament Leads Us to Hope
“We are invited into deeper communion with Christ when we soberly observe the time leading up to Holy Week. The celebration of Resurrection Sunday is all the more joyful when we have intentionally denied our flesh of certain worldly desires, just as Jesus denied his flesh by willingly giving up his life on our behalf. So this is the sacred invitation of Lent: that we learn to grieve our sin and our brokenness; leaning into the gift of godly lament. Through this, may we be healed, and may he receive glory.” The Sacred Invitation of Lent: How the Freedom to Lament Leads Us to Hope by Ashley Setterlind
Can Lament Be Worship?
“Have you ever felt like it was wrong to be honest about your grief? Perhaps you’ve told yourself, “It could be worse” or “At least...” Maybe someone said something that made you feel that by crying too much or lingering too long in mourning you weren’t living in faith or hope. But platitudes, conciliations, or guilt don’t help us much to navigate grief. It is painful to live in our cursed and broken world. This is not the pristine world God created. We were not meant to feel betrayal or disease. We were not meant to witness death or severed relationships. But we do. We live in the in-between—between Christ’s victory over death on the cross and when Christ will return and fix all the brokenness. While we wait, we face death, but we have access to rich grace in the face of death. We have lament.” Can Lament Be Worship? by Alyson Punzi
The Worth in Our Waiting by Jenn Hesse
“The Lord gradually opened my eyes to his deeper purposes for that hard season of waiting. He wasn’t pressing me under his thumb as a harsh faith lesson. Instead, he wanted more for me than any earthly desire. Through waiting I came to realize that God’s plan is always the long game. He created us in Christ for good works he prepared beforehand (Eph. 2:10). He is committed to complete the good work he started in us at salvation (Phil. 1:6). By His Spirit we are being transformed into his image from glory to glory (2 Cor. 3:18). Waiting might feel like wasted time to us, when nothing is happening and we’re not able to reach our goals. That’s not how time works with God. His Word shows us that waiting is open season for sanctification. In the interval between wanting and receiving, he actively grows us to become more like our Savior.” - The Worth in Our Waiting by Jenn Hesse
A Tale of Two Tears
"Our tears often express outwardly the toil we feel inwardly as we reconcile the world as we know it with the world as we ought to know it. Tears are the outworking of this obscurity. Tears are the testament to myself, others, and God that I am desperately trying to make sense of the pain that plagues me. Our tears proclaim our measures of faith, or lack thereof. In the act of crying, we are being transformed. Our pain is not useless, our suffering is not unseen, and our tears are not a burden. Our tears are a gift.” - A Tale of Two Tears, by S. A. Morrison