I love to read. I read a wide variety of books. Since I enjoy reading, I thought I would begin a series of posts titled, Growing Through Reading. These will be Christian books centred around a topic. Books that I have read personally. I want to encourage you to read good Christian books that will help you grow in your relationship with God. The first in this series is Books on Lamenting.

Growing Through Reading – Books on Lamenting

The first topic is lamenting. What do you think of when you hear the word lament? Do you think of deep sorrow, a longing from the heart, a prayer to God, or maybe a passionate cry for help? You could be thinking of numerous Psalms which were laments. All of that is lament.

Lament is throughout the Bible and yet it seems that we often ignore this to express sorrow, struggles, disappointment in a manner that takes us back to God.

I remember years ago sitting in a missions team meeting and for whatever reason, I wrote in my notes, “learn to lament.” I went home from that meeting and forgot about learning to lament at that time. A year ago, I read a book on prayer and there was a chapter on lament which I devoured. I made all kinds of notes. I was ready to learn a bit more about lament.

Learning about something can be good but if our learning does not become practice what good was the learning? I did not really put into practice lamenting.

Then this year with my health challenges and the events of the year, it seemed like it was time to learn to lament. You can read a bit about my health challenges here and here.

Books on Lamenting

I read two books specifically on this topic.

Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy Discovering the Grace of Lament by Mark Vroegop. Currently, this has high reviews and is a top-selling book in the category of Christian suffering and grief and Christian Pastoral Counseling. I had it on my “to be read” list and then a friend mentioned the book to my husband so he purchased it for me. It was the book I needed to read at this time.

I wanted to read another book on lament so that I was not basing all my thinking on just one book. I wanted to read what others have to write about this topic.

A Sacred Sorrow Reaching out to God in the Lost Language of Lament by Michael Card. I know of Michael Card mainly through his music. I had so cassettes of his music and then a few CDs. As I think about his music, I think of the depth of Biblical truth found in each song. I admit, I selected this book based on the author’s music.

These are both books that I have purchased.

Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy

“Lament is the honest cry of a hurting heart wrestling with the paradox of pain and the promise of God’s goodness.”

Part 1 of the book is Learning to Lament. In this section, the author takes the reader through elements of lament.

Bring your Complaints, focuses on how to bring your complaints to God.

“Through godly complaint we are able to express our disappointment and move towards a resolution.

Ask Boldly, helps the reader to understand how to be bold in our requests to God.

“Lament gives us language for talking to God about unfairness, abuse, and hidden mistreatment.”

Choose to Trust, reminding the reader that our goal is to trust God through our suffering.

“Trust is believing what you know to be true even though the facts of suffering might call that belief into question.”

Part 2 Learning from Lament – This part is 4 chapters looking specifically at the book of Lamentations and what can be learned about lament in that book.

Part 3 Living with Lament – The last part is about personal lament and corporate lament.

Overall, I found the book to be very helpful. I do understand why it is a highly rated book at this time. At times I felt it was repetitive.

I felt that this book made some assumptions about your knowledge and relationship with God. I personally feel that there are some truths about God that you need to know before you can lament. The author gives three elements of lament. I feel that there is a critical element missing, a confession. I will say that not all laments need to have a confession but it should be something that we pause and ask, “is there anything I need to confess as I lament?”

A Sacred Sorrow

This book began with a section titled, An Ancient Lament. The author begins taking us to the Garden of Eden as the beginning of lament. It is there that Satan called into question the hesed of God. (That is about the third time I have encountered that Hebrew word in the past six months.) Hesed means loving-kindness. It was also a time when it seemed that God was not there, his presence is missing.

So often in our lament flows from wondering, “Is God good?” or “Where is God?” I agree with that.

Lament should take us to worship.

Then the rest of the book has a section each on the lament of Job, David, Jeremiah, and Christ. Each of these sections showed how that individual lamented. With these examples of lamenting in the Bible, we really should be lamenting more.

I loved the way this book looked at specific examples of lament in the Bible. I am glad that I read both books to have a balanced approach to this topic.

Thoughts on Lament

I found both of these books very helpful as I consider the topic of lament. I would recommend that you read one or both of these books for learning and growing.

There are numerous books on this topic but these are the two that I have read. If you have a book to recommend, leave the title in the comments.

I do feel that lament is important and what Christians need today. So, I will be writing a bit more regarding this topic in the next few weeks.

Do you practice lament?

Learning to Lament, Living to Praise.