Tears in Your Eyes and On the Parchment - Lamentations

Lamentations 5:17-22 (ESV)

For this our heart has become sick,

for these things our eyes have grown dim,

for Mount Zion which lies desolate;

jackals prowl over it.

But you, O LORD, reign forever;

your throne endures to all generations.

Why do you forget us forever,

why do you forsake us for so many days?

Restore us to yourself, O LORD, that we may be restored!

Renew our days as of old—

unless you have utterly rejected us,

and you remain exceedingly angry with us.

A lamentation is the hardest thing to live out through a life.  You are mourning over a loss that seems unbearable to recover from in the moment of our deep pain.  In the above lines of Jeremiah’s lamentation we can read both the pain and a brief aspect of hope in his lament.   But also his despair.  Because of this book, Jeremiah is often referred to as the weeping prophet.  He is not afraid to cry over his pain and suffering.   In our world, crying is often considered a weakness.  But if you read these five chapters you can almost see the drops of tears between each line that may have dropped on the parchment paper as Jeremiah wept as he wrote.   The last lines are the scariest.   He writes about a possible hope of renewal in the last days, but then tags the entire book of Lamentations with:

“... unless you have utterly rejected us, and you remain exceedingly angry with us.”   

This is what despair and pain and suffering can do. It can cloud our minds and hearts from seeing the hope we once had.   Note what Jeremiah wrote on the interior of the book:

Lamentations 3:22-26 (ESV)

The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases;

his mercies never come to an end;

they are new every morning;

great is your faithfulness.

“The LORD is my portion,” says my soul,

“therefore I will hope in him.”

The LORD is good to those who wait for him,

to the soul who seeks him.

It is good that one should wait quietly

for the salvation of the LORD.

One of the great quotes of life is:

Don’t doubt in the dark what you believed on in the light. 

Jeremiah is hurting.  Is is doubting in the dark.   If a great man like Jeremiah can suffer this way, so, too, us.   

But God is the God of all comfort. 

Matthew 5:4 (ESV)

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.