Lament is not for the weak.

Their heart cried to the Lord.

O wall of the daughter of Zion,

let tears stream down like a torrent

day and night!

Give yourself no rest,

your eyes no respite!

Lamentations 2:18

True lament is a cry rising up from the deepest of emotions. It is a cry from the heart. It cannot be manufactured, faked, or forced. It must well up from our deepest grief and sorrow. Lament needs emotions to truly drive it… emotion and fathomless loss.

The emotions that fuel lament can vary. Sadness is not the only one. Lament is often a witches brew of various feelings: anger, outrage, injustice, pain, grief, comparison, frustration, loneliness, bitterness, depression… virtually any personal, powerful negative feeling. Bubbling up from a soul that has reached its emotional boiling point, the heart cries. Lament focuses itself though. It focuses specifically WHERE and to WHOM the heart cries. 

The Lord is the direction of true lament. I cannot lament to others. They may lament with me. More likely though, others will watch my lament in emotional impotence, for rare is the friend who shares enough of the same emotional ingredients of my personal lament. MY heart cries out. MY heart has the hurt. MY heart laments. Yes, corporate lament can happen (it does in this verse: “THEIR heart cried to the Lord”) but only those who truly feel the depths of emotion will really lament together.

And the stream of tears pouring down the faces of lamenters are unmistakably intense because lament is not for the weak. A raging torrent of sorrow and pain floods the faces of those in lament. And the call of this verse is to NOT hold back (very counter-culture, especially for masculine stereotypes)… let the tears flow… give it no rest… open the hydrant of tears day and night in relentless lament for as long as you need to do it! And as long as the cry is to the Lord, the tears will flow in the right direction. Crying out to people alone just turns into self-pity and a desire to manipulate sympathy. I have had to repent of this motivation, and I still fight it. But in strong lament, from strong emotion, feeling powerless to see change, I can in lament begin to gain a better strength. Crying out to heaven thus brings a sense of purpose… it engages a tear-filled form of faith, and is precious to God as lament turns to the only place to find some beginning of relief, some bit of perspective, some thread of hope.