Stay with it. Be angry; it’s important. Then we move beyond to make it history.
I use a classic tool we can find all over the Psalms. Lament.
It’s a fine form of a prayer pattern in five sections:
1) address God (praise, acknowledge, whatever notes God is with us too)
2) make a complaint to God (moan, shout, get it all out of the system – every last awful detail of what we’re upset or angry or hurt or more about)
3) spell out our trust in God no matter the complaint (name the times we’ve got through before, name what we believe God has done for us before, no matter how angry we feel about trying to find anything at all God has done to help us before)
4) appeal to God to help or fix something, occasionally someone (what would fix this thing for us? What could anyone do? Name it all, even if it’s hard)
5) praise God, and if we can bear it, praise God with a promise of our own faithfulness to God.
This form of prayer and plead to God has long history over millennia because it helps. It works. It’s a Holy literary device because it’s a tool that releases us. It makes us set out the bare bones of our despair as we write our truth, it exposes our weakness and need, it acknowledges God’s unlimited active grace and it lets us pour ourselves into God’s profound care. If we feel the need, we can lay blame as we spell out our weakness. In Psalms we read, ‘my enemy pursues me.’ We might write, ‘they didn’t hear me yet again.’ Lament is an exposing trusting encounter with our or others’ truth, held in the extraordinary presence of God. God hears.
Like other Lament writers, I find that when I’m despairing, confused, angry, betrayed and more, I choose to force my horrendous situation into a Lament. It makes me spell it out and at the same time, whether I feel it in the moment or not, remind myself that God always knows and loves more than I can ever know. I start by blubbing out the issue, then I go to the pattern. It always makes me write that I trust God, and if I was wondering, the very writing reminds me that it’s true. In times like these, I encourage you. Trust, Lament in truth, trust even more.
I also find that doing this with an object helps. Often I find a thing, an object. Box? Card? Anything. I hold it. As I feel it and move it in my hands, I enter the Lament: praise God, name the horribleness, name how God helped me before, ask God's help in this, praise God. I put the object down and say, "with this (name the object), I place it down and put it into your hands, O God. It is no longer my burden."
Then I wait, feel and think. Countless times, the burden is lifted and I have the psychological distance to see what needs done.
