Definition: Prayers of lament are ways to approach God with the realities of sorrow, frustration and angst that consume and distract.
Adele Ahlberg Calhoun, Spiritual Disciplines Handbook: Practices that Transform Us, 272.
I was in a workshop and we were being led through a section about lament. During our time together we were offered a structure/pattern for a psalm of lament and invited to take time alone to write our own.
With my notes on its structure, I grabbed my clipboard and began writing. Writing — that was basically all I was doing. I looked at what the elements were that I needed to cover to “lament” and put words on the paper. And I started to feel a nudging…
Get real. Get raw. Get honest.
I got a new sheet of paper out and just started to put words on the paper…
Raw. Real. Honest.
It was messy, because my thoughts and feelings were messy. At the end of our time I looked at my two sheets of paper. The first with lines of words – straight, clean, orderly. The second with words strewn about the page — some illegible even to myself. Both had the elements of lament — one more honest with myself and God than the other.
Have you written or would you try to write a prayer of lament? What was your experience through it?
Elements of a Lament Psalm
1. Address: Identifies the one to whom the psalm is prayed–the Lord.
2. Complaint: Pours out a complaint honestly and forcefully, identifying the trouble and why the Lord’s help is being sought.
3. Trust: Immediately expresses trust in God–trust that He’ll answer in the way he sees fit.
4. Deliverance: Cries out to God for deliverance from the situation described in the complaint.
5. Assurance: Expresses the assurance that God will deliver. (Somewhat parallel to the expression of trust.)
6. Praise: Offers praise, thanking and honoring God for the blessings of the past, present, and / or future.
Fee and Stuart, How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth
The Sparrow's Nest 