Always speak the truth even if your voice shakes (Photo: Irene Bom)
To introduce this month’s theme of SORROW, an excerpt from the Foreward by Eugene Peterson published in Michael Card’s book, A Sacred Sorrow.
And if you want to try writing your own psalm of lament, check out the links below.
On weeping
Eugene Peterson writes,
But just try it yourself. Even, maybe especially, in church where these tear soaked Scriptures are provided to shape our souls and form our behaviour. Before you know it, a half dozen men and women surround you with handkerchiefs, murmuring reassurances, telling you that it is going to be alright, intent on helping you to “get over it.”
Why are Christians, of all people, embarrassed by tears, uneasy in the presence of sorrow, unpracticed in the language of lament? It certainly is not a biblical heritage, for virtually all our ancestors in the faith were thoroughly “acquainted with grief.” And our Savior was, as everyone knows, “a Man of Sorrows.”
source: A Sacred Sorrow by Michael Card, p.11
Compose your own Psalm of Lament
During a recent episode of The Habit Podcast, David O. Taylor describes how we might write our own psalm of lament.
To find out more, go to thehabit.co and/or listen to the podcast episode.
Prayer poem for Lent 3B : Sweet words
This prayer poem is inspired by Psalm 19, in particular verse 14: “May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.”