"... Yet you are..."

During Lent I am reading the Lament Psalms with my church.  The Psalms have fascinated me always.  Within this book we find every human emotion expressed in raw conversation.  And whether the passages are thankful praises or defeated cries, the words are never enough, but God always is.

Reading the laments help me see the power of expression.  This book contains real suffering and agony.  By naming and identifying their pain, the Psalters acted in great faith.  As they identified their pain and sat in it, the healing process could begin.  By writing their Psalms, they were readying their their wounds to be opened, cleansed, and healed.

In many ways reading the Psalms, expressing our grief, and dealing with it in a healing and restorative manner is extremely counter-cultural.  We are taught to stuff our feelings-that's what maturity technically boils down to, right?  Hiding what we truly think and feel in order to appease and push through-and not to express emotion too strongly, because this makes us weak.  As I read through the Laments, one phrase, one theme, one facet of God's heart keeps resurfacing:

"... Yet you are..."

Regardless of the magnitude of pain, confusion, and lack of confidence in the Psalter's own ability to get through it, God is.  And even when the feelings of abandonment and disillusionment are heavy and overwhelming, God is.  I am humbled that God feels our pain and wants to heal us of it, so we can be agents of healing and joy for others.  When we are at our worst, God sees and knows us to be our best.  This simple truth-"... Yet you are..."-that my heart's clinging to during this Lenten season is the same truth that God whispers over us in our weakest, ugliest, lowest moments.  

That's it; that's love.