THE ART OF LAMENT

by: Tasha Pettman


I grew up feeling like God only wanted my happiness, that when I entered worship or a church service or even my devotional time with Him, that I had to sweep all my feelings, pain, anger and confusion under the carpet before I began.

Recently as I have wrestled with this, I have discovered the beauty of lament. You can see countless times within the Bible people pouring out their anguish, their pain and their confusion to God. I then fell in love with the story in John 11, where Jesus’s friend Lazarus dies. Two important things stand out to me: Firstly, in verse 32 we see that Mary falls at Jesus’ feet and I can imagine cries out in anguish to him ‘if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’ I love that in this moment, Jesus does not rebuke her for her lack of faith, or for her lack of rejoicing, or for her pain and anguish. He welcomed it, he was okay with her not being okay.

And Secondly, Jesus wept in verse 35. Jesus the Son of God, who knew the outcome of this story, wept. He knew, and had already told others, that Lazarus would not die but that this story would have a happy ending. Jesus knew this and yet He still wept. Jesus gave grief its moment. I have learned that God is okay with my feelings because He created me in His image and He is a God who feels. I have learned that we need to give ourselves time to grieve grief. We need to give ourselves space to feel. I have found freedom in feeling all that I feel. 

 
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TASHA PETTMAN

I am a wife and a mother of two very gorgeous children (I know I am biased!). I met my husband Jonny in Liverpool whilst I was studying for my Masters in theology. We now lead Liberty Church London which we launched back in Sept 2019. I am a bit of a geek and love statistics and data - and work for a charity part time as their database manager. My other passion is eating chocolate!!

Instagram: @tashapettman

 
Freedom FridayTasha Pettman