Sacred Dignity

I watched the news this morning. I cried. I turned it off.I have repeated this pattern as often as I have had the will. Torn between feeling a need to know where we are, and recognizing my knowing doesn't change anything. It reminded me of when I was a kid.Maybe you were like me in this. I would break my arm, get a sunburn, or otherwise wound myself. Then, I would proceed to try to move, touch, or agitate the wound just to the point of hurt, to see how bad it was.Often, my mom would hear me gasp, cry, or just say, "that hurts!". Upon realizing that I was the source of my own pain, she gave me advice (which she had to repeat often), "if it hurts, don't do it." As a parent, I have shared that same wisdom more times than I can count.But I would do it again. And so do my kids. When we are injured, we seem to have a base level need to understand it. So we press into it. Except when it comes to emotional pain. For some reason many of us, when we hurt inside find a way to keep it there. We don't press in. We don't try to understand why we hurt, we just try to make it go away.As a pastor, I have found that Christians are experts at this. Maybe it comes from a belief that because of Jesus we aren't supposed to be sad, we aren't supposed to feel the same way the world does.The Bible has something else to say about that.I started reading through Lamentations this week. One of my habits, when I start studying a book of the Bible (especially one I don't spend a lot of time on...for example, Lamentations) is to visit Bible Project's YouTube channel to watch their summary of the book. Here is a link to the one for Lamentations.At about a minute thirty, in describing the poems of lament in the Bible, especially those in Lamentations, they explain that when God included our response to suffering in his word to us, these poems, "restore a sacred dignity to human suffering".This stream of news, concern for loved ones, isolation, and mask-wearing is leaving hurt behind. Each day that we wait to see the end of the tunnel adds a little more. I think it's time to understand it. To poke it a little to see how deep it goes. To wrestle with the implications. To press into God's response and see if he can bear the load I bring.I'm going to start here in Lamentations. Reading a little each day and writing here to process it out. Maybe you will find it as helpful as I do. For today, I leave us with a sneak forward to chapter three with no additional comment from me as none is needed.

Because of the Lord's faithful love we do not perish, for his mercies never end. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness!Lamentations 3:22-23 CSB