Little Wren Writes

I have laughed at some extremely inappropriate times.

Not horrifically inappropriate. Mostly when I’m overtired and someone stumbles on a word or the wedding speech is terribly awkward. I’m definitely the class clown sometimes.

But I am also definitely one of those people who can be crying one minute and laughing so hard I can’t breathe the next.

Sometimes there isn’t even a respectable transition period.
Tears.
Sniff.
Deep breath.
Someone says something stupid.
Absolutely losing it.

Apparently my emotional range is less of a gentle spectrum and more of a toddler playing with a light switch. I’ve occasionally wondered whether this means there is something slightly wrong with me. I’m increasingly convinced it just means I’m human.

Because honestly, life is weird. It can be devastating and hilarious at exactly the same time. You can cry until your eyes hurt and then somebody says something ridiculous and suddenly you’re laughing. You can spend the morning talking about something genuinely painful and the afternoon having an unnecessarily passionate argument about whether a hot dog is technically a sandwich. You can grieve someone deeply and still tell the stories about them that make everyone at the table howl with laughter.

You can have one of the worst days of your life…and still find something funny.

I’ve done a lot of crying over the last couple of years. A lot. At home. In cars. In people’s offices. During church. In places where I would really rather not have been crying.

Sometimes delicately, like someone in a period drama. Other times decidedly less so. There is nothing cinematic about proper crying. Nobody looks beautiful. Your nose runs. Your face goes blotchy. Your eyes swell. At some point someone hands you a tissue that is wildly inadequate for the situation.

Hollywood has lied to us.

And yet, some of those same seasons have contained some of the hardest I’ve ever laughed. Sometimes on the same day. Sometimes with the same people who were holding tissues an hour earlier. For a while, I wondered whether laughter meant I wasn’t taking my sadness seriously enough. Now I think I had it backwards.

Laughter doesn’t make lament less honest. Sometimes it simply reminds us that sadness hasn’t managed to swallow everything.

Lament is a word we don’t use much outside church.

It sounds ancient. Slightly dramatic. Possibly involving sackcloth. Maybe a minor key. But lament is actually remarkably simple.

Lament is telling the truth about what hurts.

No polishing. No Christian editing. No rushing to make the story inspiring.

Just:

“God, this hurts.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I am angry.”
“I am tired.”
“Where are You?”

The Bible is full of prayers like that. Which is honestly quite reassuring because I think Christians can sometimes become alarmingly uncomfortable when sadness lasts longer than expected.

We like redemption arcs. We like testimonies where someone says,

“It was the hardest season of my life…” (…and you already know a but is coming).

“BUT GOD…”

And please don’t misunderstand me. I love the but God moments. I’ve lived some of them. I believe in them. And I see them in my role ALL the time.

But sometimes you’re not at the but yet. Sometimes you’re still in the sentence before it.

Which brings me to Psalm 88. Psalm 88 is actually my favourite Psalm – which probably says some things about me that we don’t need to unpack today.

It is brutally sad. The writer is overwhelmed. Lonely. Desperate. He feels abandoned. He calls out to God and doesn’t seem to receive an answer. And if you’re familiar with the Psalms, you keep expecting the turn. Because that’s often how lament Psalms work. Everything is terrible. Enemies everywhere. Many tears. General biblical despair. And then: “Yet I will trust in you…”

Except Psalm 88 doesn’t – there is no neat resolution.
No sudden burst of praise.
No, “Actually, now that I’ve journalled about it, I feel much better.”
No inspirational quote for Instagram.

The Psalm ends: “Darkness is my closest friend.”

“Darkness is my closest friend.”

That’s it. Psalm over.

Imagine selecting that one for a church liturgy…
“Good morning everyone! It’s wonderful to gather together. Please stand as we say together: Darkness is my closest friend.”
Probably not making the service sheet.

I am so SO glad Psalm 88 is in the Bible. Because sometimes that’s where people actually are. Sometimes we don’t have the hopeful ending yet. Sometimes the prayer ends with, “God, I don’t understand.”

Sometimes you go to bed and the problem is still there. Sometimes the relationship isn’t restored. Sometimes the diagnosis hasn’t changed. Sometimes grief still feels enormous. Sometimes you pray and don’t feel any different afterwards.

Psalm 88 tells me something incredibly important:

God is not frightened by prayers without happy endings.

He allowed one into Scripture. He preserved it for thousands of years. Apparently God thought His people needed words for days when darkness still felt like the closest thing in the room. That matters to me.

I’ve spent a lot of energy trying to put theological bows around painful things. I want to understand. I want the lesson. I want to be able to say, “Here’s what God taught me through it.” Preferably in three alliterated points (I do work in ministry, after all).

But some things still don’t make sense. Some things still hurt. Some things still make me angry. Some prayers still feel unanswered. And sometimes the most faithful prayer I can manage isn’t, “God, thank You for what You’re teaching me.”

It’s:

“God, I hate this.”

I used to think those prayers sounded faithless or that I don’t have a right to say that to God. Now I think lament itself is an act of faith. Because I’m still talking to Him.

When I ask, “Where are You?”
I’m still assuming He’s worth looking for.

When I say, “This isn’t fair,”
I’m still believing He cares about justice.

When I tell Him I’m angry…
I’m still turning towards Him with my anger instead of walking away.

Psalm 88 doesn’t end happily. But it is still a prayer. The writer is still talking to God. And some days, I think that’s extraordinary faith.

And then there is laughter.
Wonderful, ridiculous, completely unproductive laughter.

I am a big fan.

The kind that starts because someone says something mildly amusing and escalates wildly beyond what the original joke deserved. The kind where someone attempts to repeat what was funny but can only wheeze. The kind where your stomach hurts. The kind where somebody snorts, which obviously makes everything approximately 400% funnier. The kind that makes no sense when you try to explain it later. “You had to be there.” (The universal phrase for this story is about to be extremely disappointing.)

I love that kind of laughter. And I’ve needed it. Some of the people who have loved me best in difficult seasons haven’t only sat with me while I’ve cried. They’ve made me laugh. They’ve sent ridiculous memes. Made terrible jokes. Played games. Made fun of me. Allowed me to make fun of them. Created completely unnecessary running jokes. Said exactly the wrong thing in such a spectacular way that it somehow became the right thing. They reminded me of something I desperately need to remember:

Not every part of my life has to hurt at once.

I think that phrase needs to become more important to me because pain is greedy. It likes to spread. One terrible thing happens and suddenly the toast burning feels like further evidence that the entire universe is personally opposed to you. You drop something and think, “OF COURSE.” The Wi-Fi stops working and suddenly this feels like the final chapter of Job.

Pain has absolutely no sense of proportion. Laughter interrupts it. Not by saying, “This doesn’t hurt.” But by saying, “This isn’t all there is.”

Laughter can almost be a tiny act of rebellion. There are days when laughing feels like standing in the middle of everything that has gone wrong and saying, “You don’t get all of me”.
Grief doesn’t get every conversation.
Anxiety doesn’t get every morning.
Disappointment doesn’t get every memory.
Pain doesn’t get every room in the house.

There is still space for silliness. For cake. For terrible jokes. For dancing badly. For singing loudly. For finding something so stupidly funny that you completely lose composure.

Maybe laughter is one of the ways our bodies remind us: “Hey. We’re still here.”

I love that Scripture makes room for both. Psalm 88 gets to exist but so does Psalm 126: “Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy.”

Ecclesiastes simply says there is “a time to weep and a time to laugh.”
Not:
“A time to weep, but please wrap that up quickly because people are becoming uncomfortable.”

A time to weep. Full stop. AND a time to laugh.

Scripture doesn’t flatten human emotion into one acceptable Christian mood. Thank goodness. Because I would be terrible at that. There are ashes and feasts. Lament and dancing. Tears and celebration.

Sometimes in the same life.
Sometimes in the same week.
Sometimes, honestly, before lunch.

I’m learning not to rush either one. When something hurts, I want to let myself say that it hurts. Not immediately fix it. Not search for the lesson. Not add an at least. Just tell God the truth.

This hurts.
I don’t understand.
I wish it were different.
I’m angry.
I’m still here.

And when something is funny? I want to laugh. Properly. Without wondering whether I’ve earned it. Without feeling guilty because something else in my life is still sad. Without being embarrassed with how loud my laugh is. Without waiting until everything is fixed before allowing myself to enjoy anything again.

Because everything may not be fixed this side of eternity. And that is an awfully long time to postpone laughter.

I don’t need every lament to end with a lesson. Psalm 88 doesn’t. I don’t need laughter to mean I’m healed. Sometimes something is just funny. Both can be true. I can trust God and tell Him I’m angry. I can love someone and grieve them. I can carry sadness into dinner and still laugh until my face hurts. I can have unanswered questions and ridiculous joy.

My laughter doesn’t invalidate my lament.
My lament doesn’t disqualify my laughter.
They’re both honest. They’re both human. And God has room for both.

So some days my prayer might end with praise. Some days it might end with, “Darkness is my closest friend.”

And some days it might be interrupted halfway through because somebody sends me something so stupid that I laugh despite myself.

Apparently God can meet me there too.

“You have taken from me friend and neighbour – darkness is my closest friend.” 
Psalm 88:18