Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy- Discovering the Grace of Lament, by Mark Vroegop
My family and I enjoyed Pixar’s animated movie Inside Out: Eleven year-old Riley and her family move from placid Minnesota to urban San Francisco, and the movie takes place inside Riley’s mind. Her emotions of Joy, Anger, Fear, Disgust, and Sadness all shape her daily outlook, with Joy at the controls. After young Riley encounters frustration in her new environment, Joy and Sadness are unexpectedly transported to Long Term Memory. Without Joy at the helm, Riley is emotionally lost, and she tries to run away from home. To prevent disaster, Joy and Sadness must find their way back to the forefront of Riley’s mind. The movie climaxes when Sadness unexpectedly saves the day, and Joy realizes that Sadness is in fact needed to help Riley thrive.
In Pastor Mark Vroegop’s book, Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy- Discovering the Grace of Lament, Christians can learn how sadness actually helps us thrive. When his daughter Silvia was stillborn, Mark found himself crying out to God, “No, Lord. Please not this!” Over time he went again and again to the Psalms and the book of Lamentations, in order to articulate his grief. His heart became tuned to experiencing “life in a minor key.”
Vroegop begins with the pattern of lament found in the Psalms: turn, complain, ask, and trust. Second, he explores Lamentations and shows what we can learn from lament. Third, he gives applications on how lament is useful and necessary in church life.
Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy helps Christians see that lament is a God-given way to process loss and anger, specifically in order to experience certain aspects of God’s grace. In Vroegop’s words, “To cry is human. But to lament is Christian.” (pg. 86) Lament expresses our sadness to God, but it is also coupled with trust, which affirms God’s faithfulness: “Lament is how you live between a hard life and God’s promises.” (pg. 84) It encouraged me to read Vroegop’s list in the appendix of twenty biblical complaints! Many times I have suppressed or ignored these raw emotions. Either we think these complaints are “unchristian”, or we are fearful of what others may think of us should we voice them.
Through the book of Lamentations, Vroegop explains how lament uncovers our hidden idols. In churches, we may have a misplaced trust in authority. We may have allowed sin to go unchecked in our own lives for a long period of time. Lament-as painful as it is- serves as God’s way for the Christian community to gain needed perspective and to rediscover God’s grace. Lament also serves to build bridges to unbelievers. Vroegop confesses that he missed opportunities to lament corporately after distressing national and local events. Expressing sadness, especially when it is someone else’s pain, is an important way to show others that we empathize with them, and more importantly that we have a Savior who understands suffering and who walks with us in our darkest moments.
In a landscape of Christian culture with seminars, worship music, radio, and podcasts which often focus only on upbeat emotions, Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy is a much needed read, albeit one in a minor key. I found his summary insightful: “A broken world and an increasingly hostile culture make contemporary Christianity unbalanced and limited in the hope we offer if we neglect this minor-key song [of lament]. We need to recover the ancient practice of lament and the grace that comes through it. Christianity suffers when lament is missing.”
Examples of lament in the Psalms are Psalm 12, Psalm 13, Psalm 22, Psalm 44, and others.
Watch Mark’s Message- “Learning to Lament”