Hopeful Laments

So I'm in a small group and we're learning about the Church calendar. We have a blog for our experiences through the Advent season. Some of my blogs may be from those blog posts just so you know the context when you see one....... ok. 


This is a little of what I was trying to articulate tonight in our small group. Its from my journal, but its applicable.


I feel overwhelmed lately with a sense of grief and sadness. I don't think i'm clinically depressed or anything, but I cry ALOT. If I've counted correctly, minus Thanksgiving break (where I think I was too busy to cry), I have cried everyday for the past month.

Certain things just set me off... Alot of it has been my own dealings with relationships, while other times its the sadness/brokenness around me. I'm just easily touched these days.

I don't think its bad that I can cry at the drop of a hat for the things outside of myself but the things inside of me, I feel aren't right. And every time it happens I get even more frustrated as to why I can't stop crying. I don't like feeling out of control of what's happening to me, but I know there is purpose in it.

I don't want to be a needy person. I want to feel that I can stand with the Lord by my side through anything. And maybe that's it. Maybe God is teaching me to take hold of Him in a more intimate way. But it really hurts to feel like I have to loose my other relationships to do that. I don't like feeling alone and I don't think its healthy to feel that way. I know there is a healthy medium between relying on God for everything and relying on humans, I just can't seem to find it.

I interviewed my Social Work friend, Robert Ayres this morning for a class. He brought up a good point that I feel applies to my sadness these days. It went something like... "You can't deal with the broken population unless you deal with your own brokenness first." Not that you have to be all fixed and perfect, but having a past in something and then trying to help others heal is not proper. Its like being on a plane where they tell you to put your oxygen mask on before helping anyone around you. Its not selfish to try to save your own life, but its necessary if you want to survive long enough help the person next to you. So if I think I'm going to help people relationally, I have to walk through the fire and figure all this stuff out for myself before getting to that point where I can be the most helpful.

In the midst of Advent, the whole mourning for the brokenness and sadness around me makes sense. Bobby Gross in his book Living the Christian year, describes advent as a time for songs and groans. We mourn for the broken world, but we joyfully sing of the coming King who is here to restore such brokenness. He has come and is coming to fix what is broken. Matthew 5 talks about how Christ did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it. It talks about the heart behind the things that we do and how broken we are on the inside before our thoughts even come into action. And at the end of the chapter we are called to be "perfect as your Father is perfect." How do we do that? I don't know yet.

So I guess this grief feeling is a curse and a blessing. Its given me this perspective of how Christ came to fix what is broken, and to truly feel that something is broken and needs fixing... so Christmas is worth the wait because of that. But its still not easy knowing that the world is so very broken, I am still so very broken and the time has not yet come for all things to be fixed.

"So sing and let your songs be joyful longings; groan and let your cries be hopeful laments."
-Bobby Gross