The Writings of Lamentations

How do you speak when the pain is so great you feel speechless?  What do you do when you can’t find the words to convey how hurt and devastated you are?  Where do you go to release the anguish that is in your heart?

When everything seems to have gone wrong and there is no hope.  When your heart is broken and no one is there for you.  When the suffering seems too much anymore to bear?  What do you do?

God knew there would be moments in every person’s life where the pain just seems too unbearable.  This was the case for Israel in the Old Testament. In this moment of pain, the author of Lamentations creates a poem.  Sometimes art, in the form of poetry, is the best way to communicate the heart of a person.

Lamentations asks questions of God that every person asks.  How can a good and loving God allow such suffering to take place in his people? How can my pain today be reconciled with a loving and merciful God? Where is God in the midst of my suffering? 

God, in His book the Bible, written to all people, inserts a unique book with Lamentations.  He allows His people to groan and ask honest questions. He does not hinder them.  He inspires the author to communicate what each person feels in his or her heart.  God does not hide from this reality.  He brings it out and into the open so He can address it. 

Lamentations is a poem of pain but also woven throughout this book is hope of the deepest kind.  When you are grief stricken.  When you are experiencing suffering and pain that may bring you spiritual confusion, read the book of Lamentations and let God speak to your heart, bringing you hope of the deepest kind.