Between Ashes & Beauty
B E T W E E N A S H E S & B E A U T Y
*welcoming the grace of biblical lament throughout lent*
We have been living in a heavy season of “in-between” these last few years. Our guess is that you have too? When God created the world, it was perfect and He declared it to be good. Then sin entered the world and everything shattered. Sin marred everything. Out of love for His broken creation, Jesus, Emmanuel, stepped down out of heaven to dwell among us. He lived a perfect life, died a sacrificial death and rose to life in victory, conquering death, sing and the grave. One day He will return and the heavens and earth will be made new. He will wipe every tear from our eyes and death and sin will be no more.
Those who are in Christ, are currently living in the tension of ALREADY/NOT YET. Jesus has already redeemed us from sin, shame and death BUT there is a not yet element. We remain in sinful, broken bodies in a broken world. We are not yet home. The new creation has not yet come.
And to be honest, this is a really hard place to dwell. We live in the valley of the IN-BETWEEN: redeemed but not yet restored. We know who God is. We have come to love and trust Him. We know His plans for us are for our good. AND YET. And yet—we still face suffering and ache in our every day. How do we align it all?
What do we do on the mornings where we wake up and everything feels impossibly broken? How do we sit in the tension of what we KNOW to be true and what we are actually FEELING? That middle ground is messy, isn’t it?
Enter the grace of biblical lament.
Over the next seven weeks of Lent, we will be pausing in the messy in-between to welcome the grace of biblical lament into our lives. We will spend time reflecting on the passages of lament in the Bible—pushing our hearts towards hope.
Lent just seems like the right time to admit that everything feels a bit broken. It seems like the perfect time to remind ourselves that while, yes, everything is dark and shattered, IT WILL NOT ALWAYS BE SO.
Join us as we learn to welcome biblical lament into our lives. We pray it stirs up fresh, raw hope within you in the days to come.
—The Restored Home team
W H A T I S B I B L I C A L L A M E N T ?
"Lament is prayer in pain that leads to trust…
The practice of lament-
the kind that is biblical, honest,
and redemptive-
is not as natural for us,
because every lament is a prayer.
A statement of faith.
Lament is the honest cry of
a hurting heart wrestling with
the paradox of pain
and the promise of God's goodness."
Mark Vroegop in Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy
Over the next seven weeks of Lent, we will be pausing in the messy in-between to welcome the grace of biblical lament into our lives. We will spend time reflecting on passages of lament in the Bible—pushing our hearts towards hope.
F O U R S T A G E S O F L A M E N T
Let’s look at the four stages of biblical lament. These passages of Scripture follow a very similar pattern, but at the bottom we see MOVEMENT. These lament passages move from pain, grief, disbelief TO trust, hope, belief. There is a beginning point, a hinge in the middle and a renewed resolve to trust. Here’s what we see in lament passages:
1. Turning towards God
2. Voicing an honest and humble complaint
3. Boldly asking God to act
4. Resolving to trust and worship
You can study and watch for these stages in the passages we will cover together in the coming weeks. Next we will look at the questions (complaints) we will be asking during this series and a resource that is so helpful (there will be a new resource shared every week!) We will also share the passage of Scripture we will be looking at next week if you want to have some weekend reading. So glad you’re here friend. We are praying for you today.
Q U E S T I O N S & C O M P L A I N T S
Over the next six weeks of Lent we will continue our series on Biblical lament. These passages of Scripture always carry a question or complaint that the author levels at God. There were so many to choose from but we’ve decided to look at the following:
How long must I suffer?
Have You stopped loving me?
Are You even listening to me?
Have You forgotten me?
Why do You afflict me?
Do You even understand?
L A M E N T R E S O U R C E N U M B E R 1
We highly recommend the book Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy written by Mark Vroegop and published by Crossway. If you would like to know more about the grace of lament in the life of the Christian, this is the book for you.
Have you read this book? We’d love to hear what you thought of it!
You can view our quick video walk through the table of contents and appendixes here.
F O R N E X T W E E K . . .
If you’d like to have some weekend reading to be prepared for next week, we would encourage you to have a read through Psalm 13.
Take note of the four stages of Biblical lament: turning to God, voicing a complaint, asking God to act and resolving to trust.
We look forward to zooming in on this passage together next week! See you Monday…
Return to RESTORED HOME homepage.