Books: Lamentations

Behold My Suffering

June 22, 2020

When one of the kids falls down, or gets a scrape or a bump, usually the first thing that comes out of my mouth is, “Oh, you’re fine.” Why do I say that? Where did I get that? My son or daughter just hurt themselves and I need to somehow cancel out the pain they’re feeling? Yes, my instinct is to give comfort and make it better. I want to fix it. But I’m trying to learn to listen first. To respond to the spoken expression of pain. Maybe they’re not fine. A lot of people we know are not fine right now. Our planet is not fine right now. Our country is not fine right now. Our laments are justified. Our feelings of anxiety and frustration are real, and real people are crying out after centuries of oppression and injury. This book gives no easy answers. This reading ends with a call for retribution in place of reconciliation or redemption. Only in the next chapter does the detached funeral singer become a witness and advocate. The narrator is the voice of the one who hears and believes and advocates before the Lord. “Look, O lord and consider! to whom have you done this?” 2:20). We are not impotent witnesses to the suffering around us. Even if we are not directly suffering the same as our neighbor, each of us has a role a duty to fulfill.