Singing in the Dark

by Ginny Owens

  Consecrated, Lord, to Thee.

  Take my moments and my days;

  Let them flow in endless praise.

  Take my voice and let me sing

  Always, only for my King.

  Take my lips and let them be

  Filled with messages from Thee.5

  Singing God’s Song

  To remember how God has rescued us, let’s memorize His words to Israel: “If you offer yourself to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted one, then your light will shine in the darkness, and your night will be like noonday. The LORD will always lead you, satisfy you in a parched land, and strengthen [you]” (Is. 58:10–11).

  And let’s memorize Jesus’ words to us, His followers: “The King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me’” (Matt. 25:34–36 ESV).

  My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?

  O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest.

  Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel.

  In you our fathers trusted; they trusted, and you delivered them.…

  But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by mankind and despised by the people.…

  Be not far from me, for trouble is near, and there is none to help.…

  I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast.…

  For dogs encompass me; a company of evildoers encircles me; they have pierced my hands and feet.…

  They divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.

  But you, O LORD, do not be far off! O you my help, come quickly to my aid!

  Deliver my soul from the sword.…

  I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will praise you.…

  From you comes my praise.

  Psalm 22:1–4, 6, 11, 14, 16, 18–20, 22, 25 ESV

  Chapter 8

  A Lament for the Broken World

  Can We Sing in Sorrow?

  We live in a broken world. The evidence of it is all around us, not least in how it leaves us brokenhearted. Sometimes the sadness is crushing, leading us to question why terrible things happen and where God is when they do. We think either He is not there or He has turned His back on us, or maybe we aren’t clever enough or good enough to find Him in our darkest moments.

  But what if He is there? What if hope can grow even in the deepest darkness? I want to explore Psalm 22 with you. It’s a lament spoken by David and then by Christ—a cry for God in the most desperate hour. We will discover how this cry led David to praise and what it meant for him and us when the same cry came from Christ’s lips.

  But first, so you can hear such a lament in today’s terms, I want to share with you a deep sadness from my own life, knowing you likely have a similar story in yours.

  Gone Too Soon

  I still can’t believe it’s true, but the page before me says so:

  On April 27, 2014, Heaven gained another angel, Christi Griggs Dippel, 41, of Sherwood, Arkansas went to be with her Savior after a courageous battle with brain cancer.…

  Christi spent most of her adult life caring for other people’s children as if they were her own. She was a devoted wife, mother, daughter, sister and friend.

  Christi loved music, scrapbooking, camping and observing nature. She was a lifelong follower of Christ.… Christi lived her life by the greatest commandments: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul and all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself.” She always put the needs of others ahead of her own. We look forward to the day when we will see her again in Heaven.1

  As I write this, it’s been six years since we lost Christi, and the wave of sadness that rises in me is as piercing as if it had happened yesterday. Death is a part of life.

  But it was never supposed to be.

  Everyone has a hero. Mine was Christi. My only girl cousin on my dad’s side, Christi was not just three years older but infinitely wiser and kinder than I. She was all the things I am not but aspire to be. She possessed a nature so easy and engaging, so true and gentle, that everyone easily called her “friend.” I knew even as a young girl that Christi was a different sort. Most people who are utterly good are boring and inaccessible, but she was not. Her goodness brought light to everything. Her subtlety and gentleness drew the world in with a magnetism usually reserved for charismatic leaders.

  My earliest memories with Christi are of singing together around our nana’s piano or with the radio in the guest bedroom of our grandparents’ cozy little house. She was a songbird with a voice so hauntingly pure, every melody lingered in the mind long after the notes had faded from the air. We usually kept a cassette recorder nearby to capture the magic.

  Even though we lived hours apart—she in Little Rock and I in Jackson—we loved the same things, especially music. Our voices harmonized perfectly, and during each visit, we would simply pick up where we had left off, harmonizing our way through pop hits and worship songs. Though our meetups at Nana’s were far less frequent than I would have liked, the fun we had filled me with enough courage to last until the next visit. No matter what nonsense was going on at school, time with Christi made it all seem fleeting and foolish. Her positive presence always pointed me toward the better days to come.

  Christi and I sent tapes (yes, cassettes) to each other via mail (yes, snail mail). Each held ramblings about our lives and some karaoke singing of our favorite songs by REO Speedwagon, Amy Grant, or the Jets. From Christi, I learned about great bands, the mysteries of boys, and cool lipstick colors. And also what it meant to become a beautiful and kind teenager.

  In the moment, I forgot most of those lessons, but I clearly remember them now. The true friendship and encouragement of my older cousin gave me a certain confidence to face the big, scary world with humility and love. A confidence I sense as deeply now as I did when I was ten.

  We grew older, and our visits became less frequent. By the time I went off to college, Christi was getting married. I started going on the road, and she started having kids. But any time we talked, we picked up right where we had left off. And boy, do I wish it had been more often.

  To celebrate her fortieth birthday, Christi and her friend Mandy came to Nashville to CMA Fest, a popular summer country-music fair. It was our first quality time together in ages. As always, our last meeting might as well have been the day before. We talked music, solved the world’s problems, and giggled hysterically about I don’t even know what. Being together took me back to those childhood music marathons, and I missed them so much.

  As the girls took their leave, Christi and I promised to stay in touch more. And so we did. Our texts and phone chats were the deepest conversations we would have as adults. I wondered why we hadn’t been doing it all along, and I knew it was entirely my fault.

  Summer quickly faded to fall, and our time together faded into the background. In October I got the call: Christi had been diagnosed with brain cancer. They would operate first on the tumors and then do several rounds of chemo and radiation. I was in complete shock. What was happening? What was God thinking?

  During that season, Christi wrote beautifully in blog posts about all that was going on. Even her texts and our phone chats were full of hope. Doctors soon removed several of her tumors and started her treatments. With every step, Christi remained positive. The outcome was uncertain, but she was willing to be thankful for every piece of good news along the way. She didn’t take any moment for granted.

  She and Mandy came to Nashville again. This time, among our adventures was a trip to the studio to record a son
g for my upcoming album—an old hymn with an exquisite, hopeful lyric and a dark, minor melody.

  O the deep, deep love of Jesus,

  Vast, unmeasured, boundless, free!

  Rolling as a mighty ocean

  In its fullness over me!2

  Chemotherapy had brought a slight hoarseness to Christi’s angelic voice, which only made it more hauntingly beautiful. She sang melody, declaring the love she wholeheartedly believed was hers. I recorded my harmonies later so she wouldn’t have to listen to me fight through tears as I sang.

  Christi and her family made a couple of other visits to Nashville that year, which was glorious. But the last time I saw her, it was back in Jackson for our nana’s funeral.

  My time with Christi ended much as it began in childhood. But instead of tapes via snail mail, there were texts and audio files. She would text what was going on with her and ask how I was doing. Her last text was asking when my next album, the one with our song, would release. After that, there was silence. Hospice. Five days after my birthday and eighteen days before hers, Christi passed away.

  Weep and Ask Why

  What do you do when the world crashes down, horribly and unfairly, around you?

  As a culture, we have a whole host of ways we respond to suffering, but lament tends to not be one of them, even for the Christian. Josh Larsen helpfully wrote that “lament isn’t giving up, it’s giving over. When we lift up our sorrow and our pain, we turn it over to the only one who can meet it: our God.”3

  But instead of giving our pain over to God, we shut out the noise of what is wrong and broken. We turn to entertainment or busyness or substances. We do not go to God, perhaps because we do not know how. We are confused by why a good God would allow horrible atrocities, and we don’t know how to talk to Him about it. Or we write off tragedies as simply another of God’s great mysteries. And we dismiss our aching souls and drown out our nagging questions with the drone of daily life.

  I did, for sure. Right after Christi’s funeral, I went home and started to prepare for a weekend of leading worship in Florida. I remember sobbing as I rehearsed each song in the set, wondering how on earth I would lead four services. I tried coaching myself with platitudes—Christi was in a better place, after all; the Lord was in control, after all. In the end, the only way I could get through the weekend was to avoid that tender place of tears and questions.

  When I returned home, I wanted to keep pushing down the pain, but I began to let the sadness be my companion. It came in waves at the most unexpected times. At first I dreaded every moment of it and tried to fight it off with distractions. But in time I understood that the tears had to fall. The waves of sadness from missing someone I love had to crash over me.

  Even now there are days when they do. I didn’t know then what I know now: the song of lament is one we must sing on our way to hope. Authentic joy rarely comes until we have allowed ourselves to taste true sorrow.

  King David taught us this in many of his psalms. He lived an incredibly colorful life. As a man after God’s own heart, he experienced seasons of great blessing and larger-than-life victories, but he also faced deep, dark, troubling times. As a musician and poet, David eloquently expressed his heart during every season. In suffering, he did not stuff the pain away but lamented before God.

  In Psalm 22, David shows us that lament is pouring out our tears and questions to the Lord in the darkness—trusting that He hears us whether we hear Him or not. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest” (vv. 1–2 ESV).

  David was in a dark place. Literal enemies were pursuing him with a vengeance, as were the agony and fears in his own mind. We don’t know the details of this season, but we do know that he had been crying out continually to God and hearing no answer. In this song, David woefully told the Lord about every circumstance, thought, and feeling—perhaps for the hundredth time.

  David begged to know why. Why God seemed far away. Why He had turned His back on David in his time of need and despair. David knew that God deserves praise and that his ancestors had received help when they prayed to and trusted Him. But David hadn’t. God’s distance left him disoriented and discouraged, feeling like a worm, despised by everyone (vv. 1–6).

  David told the Lord how his enemies talked about him, making fun of him because he believed in God (vv. 7–8). He said God made him trust, even as a little child (v. 9). Yet trusting God had brought him to this place of physical and emotional weakness, to the point of death. “I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast” (v. 14 ESV). Exhausted and emotionally wrecked, David was broken in every way.

  So he took his struggles to the Lord. Not politely, but with brutal honesty. Behind this lament is David’s awareness that he wasn’t telling the God of the universe anything He didn’t already know. It is because he knew that God is the only One who could change his circumstances that he cried, moaned, and wailed before Him.

  During the final season of Christi’s life, I asked “Why?” so often. For my own heart but even more for her husband, John, and two amazing kids, Emily and Andrew. It all seemed so unfair. And God seemed to be silent.

  As I read back through our text messages, I see the simple way in which Christi, like David, lamented. She was infinitely positive, but when things began to get worse, she acknowledged it.

  In mid-February she said, “Oh my word, I’m ninety years old. Using Nana’s cane around the house and I’m exhausted. Praying through this.” Her next text was “The most exciting thing about my day besides getting to worship in my living room thanks to online church … is that I’m awaiting my MSG-free salad with Ranch from Jason’s Deli. Yum!” A few days later, she said, “I’m having to go to PT, I’ve lost so much muscle. Started PT today and have been using a wheelchair some. Frowny face. Love you.”

  She spoke of every loss and every heartache with the awareness that there was a heavenly Father listening and love to be experienced.

  A year after her passing, I got to see Christi’s family during a trip to Little Rock. It was so fantastic to spend time with them but so heart-wrenching too. Again I asked God why He would leave a young family without their mother and wife.

  I still ask.

  I lament for Emily and Andrew, whose social media posts and text messages reflect that they have grown up to be as kind and generous and wonderful as their mom. I lament that Christi is not here to see it happening. I ask God why it is this way. I know He knows why, but I do not know. So sometimes I still wrestle with all that is wrong in this story.

  Jesus Wept

  When I find myself facing something terribly grievous and unfair, I always come back to the story of Jesus as He grieved the loss of His friend Lazarus.

  In John 11, we hear the account. Lazarus’s sisters, Mary and Martha, had sent Jesus a message that their brother was ill, but Jesus waited two days to go to them. He even said that Lazarus’s illness would not end in death but was for the glory of God (v. 4). When He finally set out for Judea, He told His disciples, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him” (v. 11 ESV). When they didn’t get it, He clarified: “Lazarus has died, and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him” (vv. 14–15 ESV).

  Jesus reached Bethany, and Martha immediately came to Him, insisting with despair, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died” (v. 21). Jesus told her, “Your brother will rise again” (v. 23).

  Although He knew what He was about to do, when Mary and her friends and family came to Him weeping, Jesus “was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. And he said, ‘Where have you laid him?’ They said to him, ‘Lord, come and see.’” After that, we’re told simply that Jesus wept (vv. 33–35 ESV).

  Even as Jesus prepared to raise Lazarus from the dead, H
e Himself lamented death. As Timothy Keller said, Jesus “is one with us. He feels the horrific power of death and the grief of love lost.”4

  This gives me hope in my lamenting. Whether in the loss of someone close, in the frustration of my disability, or in the times when God seems so far away, I know He loves me. I know He loves those whose suffering I’m weeping over. And not only that, but He Himself came to earth to experience the agony of death and to weep with us.

  Call Him to Come

  In his time of trouble and despair, David begged God to intervene—to save him from his enemies (vv. 19–21). There was in David a desperate longing for God to do something so that things would no longer be the way they were.

  But we also hear in David’s words an equally desperate cry for God to simply be near because trouble was near (v. 11). Just as a child needs a parent in the midst of a storm, King David, who loved to seek God’s face, needed to feel his Shepherd-God close. He needed the assurance of God’s presence more than he needed things to be fixed.

  Sometimes this is where our prayers ring false. We complain without asking the Lord to come near. We talk endlessly without inviting Him into our struggles. I have several journals of such one-sided prayers. Reading back through, I am amazed at how much I cried at God without engaging Him. The difference between lament and total despair is the invitation for God to come be with us. To intervene in our hearts even if He doesn’t intervene in our circumstances.

  At our church, we have a Sunday each month when we set aside time for corporate lament. We have cried out to God about injustice. About the plight of the poor, the orphan, and victims of domestic violence. And for all the families losing loved ones during the coronavirus pandemic. I once led us in a lament for those with disabilities and chronic illness. We know in theory that God sees and cares, but when we collectively groan and grieve before God because things are not as they should be, calling on Him to be with us and to bring change, we are following David’s lead.