I Can Run, but I Cannot Hide
It is time to face something I detest: deep, dark, painful emotions. I would rather run than sit in those emotions. The feelings that come from the injustice of a baby dying of malnutrition outside the door of the hospital. The heartbreak of another mom losing her baby because of incompetent health care providers. Internal decisions of who I can physically or financially help and who will die because I do not or cannot. Heart struggles as I listen to my neighbor beg me once again to find someone in the US or Europe to care for her handicapped daughter and give her a better life. The reality that my dad’s dying brain will likely never again call me by name. What do we do with such deep inequality, pain, and suffering? Lament.
The Bible provides numerous examples of this spiritual practice. To lament means I must face those deep, dark emotions, fears, and thoughts. It necessitates sitting in the ugly rather than hiding, only looking for the beauty. I would much rather find the silver lining of the storm cloud and move on than let the rain of sorrow engulf me.
Mark Vroegop defines this spiritual practice of lament as “the honest cry of a hurting heart wrestling with the paradox of pain and the promise of God’s goodness.”[1] These words resonate deeply with me as I wrestle with both the ache of injustice and the goodness of a God who still sees. Lament is scary, and it brings healing. It is not one or the other; it is both-and.
In Healing Leadership Trauma: Finding Emotional Health and Helping Others Flourish, Nicolas and Sheila Wise Rowe address the needs and desires of leaders to be seen and heard. They also address the factors that prevent this from happening. They look at how to grieve hurt, heal trauma, and foster spiritual formation that promotes holistic movement forward.[2] Lament is a recurring theme throughout the book, as it explores the pursuit of victory and healing in the context of various aspects of trauma.
Lament is a way to help heal the wounds of detachment from our early lives by taking our pain to God and communing with Him in it.[3] In healing from neglect and abuse, lament allows us to move beyond the walls of that pain.[4] Lament allows those dealing with gender trauma to bring complete healing to those wounds.[5]
Lament is an ancient spiritual practice. The Bible has an entire book dedicated to lament. A majority of the Psalms are laments. NT Wright defines lament as asking “Why?” without receiving an answer, allowing us to look beyond our sinful failures and to the broader suffering of mankind.[6] Vroegop lays out a four-step Biblical pattern of lament:
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- Coming before God.
- Bringing specific complaints to him.
- Asking him to do something.
- End with renewed trust and praise.[7]
This process of lament allows us to realign our hearts to God’s promises, His truth, and to find hope in the darkness. The secular world is also seeking answers in these complex emotions through lament. Dr. Jenny McLaurin provides a lament process that leaves out our Divine Creator:
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- Acknowledge the reality of our lives.
- Intentionally gather together community.
- Provide a space that is multi-sensory and offers opportunities for both silence and engagement.
- Come to a shared conclusion to move forward.[8]
Both processes reveal that lament, whether sacred or secular, is ultimately a search to deal with pain through connection. Both incorporate the concept of community, whether with God or one another, as integral to the healing process of lament. The Rowes suggest that as leaders seek to forgive and regain trust with others and self, lament will facilitate healing of that connection with God and others.[9] When we choose to put in the hard work to heal, we can then lead others to a place of healing and hope.
Through my journey as a healthcare provider and one living in the developing world, I have come to understand the truth of Romans 5:5: “Hope does not disappoint” (NASB). As an Enneagram 7, I may never readily run to sit in deep emotions and pain. However, looking at lament as an opportunity to connect more deeply, first with God and then with others, removes some of the fear and uncertainty. In his book Redeeming the Past: My Journey from Freedom Fighter to Healer, Father Michael Lapsley explains hope as “not utopian or naïve” but instead demands “commitment, hard work, struggle, and sacrifice.”[10] Lament, then, becomes a place where pain meets purpose, and hope is reborn.
“Those who sow with tears shall reap with joyful shouting.” Psalm 126:5 (NASB)
[1] Mark Vroegop, Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy: Discovering the Grace of Lament (Crossway, 2019), 26.
[2] Nicholas Rowe and Sheila Wise Rowe, Healing Leadership Trauma: Finding Emotional Health and Helping Others Flourish(InterVarsity Press, 2024), 5.
[3] Rowe and Wise Rowe, Healing Leadership Trauma, 50.
[4] Ibid, 86.
[5] Ibid, 100.
[6] N. T. Wright, “Christianity Offers No Answers About the Coronavirus,” Time, March 20, 2020, https://time.com/5808495/coronavirus-christianity/.
[7] Vroegop, Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy, 29.
[8] Dr. Jenny McLaurin, MD, “The Wisdom of Lament,” Spirituality Health, March 2022, https://www.spiritualityhealth.com/the-wisdom-of-lament.
[9] Rowe and Wise Rowe, Healing Leadership Trauma, 124.
[10] Father Michael Lapsley and Stephen Karakashian, Redeeming the Past: My Journey from Freedom Fighter to Healer (Orbis Books, 2012), 315.
About the Author
Kari
Kari is a passionate follower of Jesus. Her journey with Him currently has her living in the Sahara in North Africa. With over a decade of experience as a family nurse practitioner and living cross-culturally, she enjoys being a champion for others. She combines her cross-cultural experience, her health care profession, and her skills in coaching to encourage holistic health and growth. She desires to see each person she encounters walk in fullness of joy, fulfilling their God-designed purpose. “Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.” Romans 12:12 ESV11 responses to “I Can Run, but I Cannot Hide”
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Wow Kari what a great post. Thank you for your honesty as well as your invitation. How does lament play a role in your doctoral project or the next steps of leadership you are being invited to?
Thank you, Ryan. I believe God is helping me learn to lament so I can help lead others toward this. My doctoral project focuses on coaching leaders toward trust, collaboration, and holistic healing. Lament is an integral part of the healing process.
Kari, I really resonate with the importance of lament for one’s healing and that you affirm that it is both “scary, and it brings healing.”
The section on John Bowlby’s Four Stages of Grief mentions lament as an antidote to unforgiveness, and to process what really needs releasing. (Rowe and Wise Rowe, 112-116)
I’d love to hear a bit more on how you see trauma impacting one’s ability to lament or release. Is it a blockade, merely an impediment that makes the process harder, or something else?
Thanks, Joel. In trauma, people develop self-protective habits and neuro pathways that lead to a disconnection from others out of perceived necessity. Lament is a state of being open and vulnerable, first inwardly about emotions and complex realities, and (hopefully) eventually in community. Those dealing with trauma must slowly get to a place where they can start opening up.
Dr. Kinard,
I’m proud of you for the way you’re embracing lament. It takes a lot of courage and discipline to sit with those deeper places, and I admire how you’re doing that work. Your final sentence was especially meaningful to me—“Lament, then, becomes a place where pain meets purpose, and hope is reborn.”
I’m curious, in your own experience, what does it look like for you when hope is reborn?
Elysse, the picture that comes to mind of hope being reborn is a butterfly taking flight for the first time. Hope is light, graceful, and free because the time has been taken to address and leave the sorrow.
Kari, thank you for the rich post. Lament is such an important part of wholeness, to be able to come to God with everything, not just the praise and worship, but the hurts and sorrows. As you have begun to allow yourself to consider lament, do you think that experiencing God’s grace through it will make it easier to come back to it when needed?
Diane, yes, I am already seeing how practicing (and sometimes forcing) lamentation is allowing me to see the healing that comes from it. This morning I woke to news of a loss in our family. I am seeing beauty in the tears.
Kari,
I laughed at your first sentence. Then, I read your third sentence and the following and I wasn’t laughing anymore but instead remembering my own trauma and experiences. The dozens and dozens of burials I went to in our village and how life does not hold the same value in that community as it does for me. The act of lament is something that we really do not teach well, at least not in the churches I have ever been a part of. Thanks for the new book recommendation.
Adam, I don’t think many Christians in my circles even know what the book of Lamentations is about.
Kari,
I feel we have spent a lot of time this semester living in “both and.” As human service professionals we seem to see a lot of things that make us lament.
In Ohio and PA we had a beautiful but late fall (we actually saw lilac trees blooming again this fall), but now we are getting ready to enter the dark cold days of winter. So, I could use some warm weather feel good news. What have you seen in the past week that has reminded you of God’s presence?