Lately, I seem to be surrounded by brokenness and pain.  I hear peoples stories, sometimes of things quite painful and unimaginable.  sometimes this pain and suffering is brought on by our choices or the choices of others.  Often times it is a bi-product a fallen world.

    All of us experience pain and suffering.  To express it so simply, and matter of fact, does not minimize what that can mean for us as individuals when we are going through it.  we become disoriented and we want it to end.  We question, we blame,and we cry out to God for relief.  There seems to be no answer and no end, as we move in and through the pain.

    In many ways the way we deal with pain and hurt is common to all.  But it is still uniquely my pain, your pain, or their pain.  Depending upon its severity, or its relation to other events, it can be devastating.  As people of faith, we try to justify the situation by saying, “God must have a plan” or “there is something that I am to learn.”  But at times those answers do not satisfy.  Sometimes we may come to the conclusion that there is no answer and we just cast ourselves before God and his sovereignty, his steadfast love, and grace.

     In the Psalms, we see the gamut of emotion.  As people give honor, praise and thanksgiving to God.  But a majority of the Psalms are a lament.  There is pain, hurt, disorientation, and no shalom.  The children of Israel show us a way of being open and honest before God even in the pain.  They show us a faith and a hope that God will make it all right, even if its not as we might expect.

     In these Psalms, the Children of Israel address God.  They bring their hurts, worries and pains to him, because they believe that he is the one who can bring things back to Shalom.   To that place of wholeness that they once had.  As they are speaking to God, they express deeply and fully what is going on but they do not presume to tell God how to fix it.  They just know that he can and they have the hope that he will.  In fact, in the lament is included a praise for what God will do.  Somewhere in the process of crying out in their pain, or in their crisis, they come to the place where they trust and praise God.  They put their hope in him.

     Ultimately, as we move through our pain we too end up with our hope in him.  In the beginning we are not always at that place, but God does get us there.

     How does God bring you through it?  What has your experience been?

Picture: Hope and Pain, by kwerfeldein