2026 Sacred Whispers Blog

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“Pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us.”

Psalm 62:8

THE GIFT OF LAMENT

We don’t talk about lament much in church, perhaps because we subconsciously think that level of emotional honesty is somehow the opposite of faith. But I define lament as the sacred, Spirit-led practice of bringing our deepest sorrows, hurts, fears, and disappointments into the presence of God in honest prayer, trusting that He hears and heals us through the fervent agency of prayer.

Theologically, lament is an expression of faith that refuses to allow pride or insincerity in our prayers. Lament pulls the broken heart toward God with raw honesty and vulnerable trust rather than allowing our pain to push them away from God.

Lament is the biblical language of grief that still believes.  It is the cry of a heart that aches but refuses to let go of God.  It is suffering that speaks directly to the Lord rather than suffering in silence.  Lament is the spiritual practice of:

• Naming the pain without pretense or fear (Psalm 13).
• Asking God to intervene, even when the heart feels fragile (Psalm 22).
• Clinging to trust when answers are invisible (Lamentations 3:21–23).
• Redirecting the soul toward hope, even if circumstances remain unchanged (Habakkuk 3:17–18).

I like to say that lament is a “worship song, sung in the minor key”; the kind of worship that God welcomes and honors with tenderness (Psalm 56:8). It is emotional honesty offered in the presence of Divine compassion.

THE STORY OF A MAN WHO LAMENTED HIS WAY INTO JOY

There is a story from the late 1800s that I keep returning to as a reminder of the healing power of lamenting. This story reveals how sorrow can bring a man to his knees and still somehow lift his eyes toward God all at the same time. Horatio Spafford was a lawyer in Chicago, a husband, a father, and a man of sincere faith. Life had already hit him hard, first with the Great Chicago Fire that destroyed nearly everything he owned, and then with financial struggles that followed him like a shadow. But nothing prepared him for what came next.

In 1873, he sent his wife and four daughters on a ship to Europe while he stayed behind to handle some lingering business. A few days into their journey, in the middle of the night, their ship collided with another vessel. The impact was violent. People were thrown from their bunks. Water rushed in faster than anyone could comprehend. And in just twelve minutes, the massive ship slipped beneath the waves.

Spafford’s wife, Anna, survived. She was found floating on a piece of debris, numb and half-conscious. But their four daughters, Annie, Margaret Lee, Bessie, and little Tanetta, were gone. All of them. Swept away into a sea that didn’t care how precious they were.

Anna sent a telegram with two devastating words:

“Saved alone.”

When Spafford boarded the next ship to reach her, I cannot imagine how heavy his steps must have felt on that dock. Somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic, the captain pulled him aside and quietly said, “We are passing over the place where your children went down.”

Spafford walked out onto the deck, the cold wind hitting his face like a rebuke. He stood at the railing, staring into the dark water below, water that had swallowed his daughters whole. What do you do with a grief that large? What do you say when the ocean holds the bodies of your children?

He didn’t preach to himself. He didn’t quote Scripture. He didn’t try to “be strong.” He just stood there and let the tears fall, raw, uncensored, unprotected. And in that moment, with nothing but sorrow in his chest and salt air in his lungs, something sacred happened. Spafford began to speak to God, not with answers, but with ache. Not with victory, but with lament.

And from that broken place, words rose up inside him that would later become a hymn that believers around the world would sing in their own seasons of grief:

“When peace like a river attendeth my way…

When sorrows like sea billows roll…

Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,

It is well, it is well with my soul.”

The world sings the declaration “it is well” with great emotional resolve, but few remember the “sorrows like sea billows roll” that came before that declaration. You don’t get to the peace of resolve until you first go through the pain of lament.

As the theologian Walter Brueggemann once wrote, “Lament is the daring practice of reaching for God when God seems unreachable.”

THE BIBLE IS NOT AFRAID OF YOUR TEARS

One of the quiet miracles of Scripture is how many pages are stained with the tears of God’s people. Lament is not a footnote, it is a recurring theme.

David lamented in the caves of Adullam. (Psalm 142)

Hannah lamented until her lips moved with no sound. (1 Samuel 1)

Jeremiah lamented over a broken city and a broken people. (The Book of Lamentations)

Job lamented until his friends grew impatient with the depth of his emotional honesty. (Job 3)

Jesus Himself lamented in Gethsemane with sweat like drops of blood. (Luke 22)

Lament is not weak or faithless; nor is it emotional immaturity.  But rather, lament is the doorway through which the soul releases sorrow, so joy has the freedom to enter. God never rebukes tears shed honestly in His presence. In fact, He says He keeps them, every last one, in a bottle. (Psalm 56:8)  In case you may be asking, what kind of God records your tears? The kind who doesn’t flinch when he hears your pain, and whose power is greater than your sorrow.

WHY JOY SOMETIMES HIDES BEHIND TEARS

Joy and sorrow are not opposites. They are often neighbors. Sometimes the deepest joy is found not by ignoring sorrow, but by passing through it. When we silence our tears, we suffocate our joy. But when we pour out our hearts to God, we create the emotional and spiritual capacity to feel again.

Lament is emotional honesty in the presence of divine compassion.  And it is the prayer of a heart that refuses to meander through life numb and paralyzed to its own reality.  Lament gives the heart and soul permission to feel.  It exposes the hurt to God so He can apply His healing to us.

HONEST JOY

The Psalmist says, “Pour out your heart before Him.” The language here carries the imagery of tipping over a vessel until every last drop spills out. God extends an invitation to us to literally lean over and pour out the deepest and heaviest volumes of our pain before Him, until the very last dreg is emptied from our cup. God is not asking for cute, practiced prayers or finely polished spirituality. He is asking for the raw, unfiltered, ‘honest’ truth about the things that have shattered our hearts. This kind of truth leaks out through our tears and gushes forth from our cries.  And it is only this level of prayer that gains an audience with heaven.  The Apostle James reminds us that it’s the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man that has the power to avail greatly with God.

Why is this so? Because God cannot heal what we pretend isn’t broken. Joy rises to the top, not after we finally feel strong, but after we finally feel safe enough to be weak.  There is something sacred that happens when you allow yourself to be humbly broken in God’s presence. Tears loosen the soil. Lament clears the rocks and debris. Honesty digs the hole and plants the seed. And slowly, silently, almost without notice, joy begins to take root.

PRAYER

Lord, teach me the grace of honest lament. Give me the courage to pour out the parts of my heart I’ve been too afraid to name. Meet me in the places where my tears fall. Hold me in the places where my hope trembles. And turn my mourning, in Your time, into a joy that rises gently but deeply from the soil of my surrender. In Jesus’ name, amen.

SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINE: GIVE YOURSELF PERMISSION TO FEEL

Today, allow yourself a moment of holy honesty. Sit quietly and name the pain you’ve been carrying but hiding. Write it out. Speak it aloud to God. Let it breathe in His presence.

Your tears are not a sign of weakness.  They are evidence that your soul is still alive.  And joy… joy grows best in the soil of surrender.