Back in 2012 and 2013, I was going through a rough time. I was newly divorced after 22 years of marriage and was very lonely and depressed. My kids were all going off to college as well, so I was feeling very alone. I started diving into Eckhart Tolle and re-evaluating my spirituality. Through my church, I took a class called "Healing Care" and one of the assignments was to write a lament. The definition of lament found though Google says: "a passionate expression of grief or sorrow."
At that time in my life, something felt missing, but it wasn't the loss of a loved one, it was more. In this lament, although I use "Christian" terminology (for the group I was in), I was not speaking to the Lord of the bible, but more the God that I feel we are all a part of and once knew intimately as "us", our collective selves, before we were separated into individual selves and separated from the One. It was mostly written as one stream of consciousness that was poured out one evening.
So, I thought I would share my lament with Steemit readers and see what kind of discussion might arise from it. Perhaps it can impact someone going through what I went through at that time. Fast forward 3 to 4 years, my life is amazing. I am remarried to a wonderful woman, my soul mate, and have two more beautiful children. It is pretty hard to believe I was once that sad. If you are going through a similar rough time yourself, hang in there, things will get better.
So, here it is, My Lament:
Lord, I trust you have, do today, and will continue to guide me throughout my life although I do not hear you. I feel I am one with you, and part of me, that is not my fallen nature, still remembers an existence with you. An existence from before the time sin entered your creation. I do not blame you Lord, I do not deny you Lord, I simply struggle to shed my sin nature and expose the part of me that is you. I do not believe in an enemy, except for the enemy within me that sabotages my relationships, including my relationship with you, and hides your Joy and your Love.
Lord I will seek you and I will eventually find you.
But I am so frustrated Lord.
What is it like to be in perfect communion with you?
My thoughts, my sin, do not make room for you.
How do I break through that?
How do I forget the ways of the world and remember your ways?
How do I kill my creation and reveal yours?
I am so frustrated Lord.
My emotions reveal a pain deep inside. “Sin Emotion” that is not of your creation.
Fear, guilt, and pleasure, all my own creation, run rampant in me.
Where do I find the emotions that occur from deeper inside?
How do I expose the emotions that are from you like joy, love, and compassion?
How do I accept my pain as sin and reveal you Lord?
How do I shut out my invasive and compulsive thoughts?
I think I am seeking truth or solving my problems with those thoughts, but I am creating distance from you Lord.
I know you are there in me, but my sin gets in the way.
The things of man, or the collective sin-nature, get in the way.
I will seek you in prayer and meditation.
I will seek you by looking at my rising emotions from a distance and not react.
I will seek you by accepting and acknowledge what happens.
I will seek you by living for the present moment and not worrying about the past or the future.
I will find you in the void I try to fill every moment of my life.
Thanks for reading!