I have to confess, I don’t miss being a teenager.  Adolescence can be filled with all kinds of awkward and confusing moments.  Once you reach 13, you’re too old to be a kid, but too young to be an adult.  Overnight, new pimples appear in horrifying places.  And Susie, who was your best friend forever last week, won’t speak to you this week.  To top things off, that cute boy that you have a crush on doesn’t even know that you exist. For me, as for most adults I know, these kinds of events during adolescence were enough to elicit a retreat into a deep, dark hole of despair.  Whether I (in my state of teenage misery) was alone in my room or present with others, there was sure to be plenty of obvious sighing, slouching and forlorn grimacing.  

Now that I am truly an adult, I like to think that I can roll with the punches, take life in stride, and not let daily disappointments show.  But as I look back on my own adolescence, and observe the teenagers with whom I now interact, I can appreciate such sincere displays of distress, which come from a feeling of complete and utter hopelessness.  In some aspects, it seems that teenagers risk lament and show emotions in ways that adults have long forgotten or forsaken.

As I look to Scripture, I see a hint of that teenage display of emotions in the Psalms, particularly the Psalms of Lamentation.  There, we read of David, who will not let the world cover over his sorrow.  Instead, we see him at his end, flinging himself down and flooding his couch and bed with tears.  David, an acclaimed warrior king and leader, understood that his earthly life was not just a constant singing of praise.  He knew that sometimes life leaves you feeling alone, forgotten, and completely dejected, and all you can do is weep.  In those moments, David risked honesty before God.  He allowed his emotions to serve as a guide, which led him to a throne of grace.  Before God, David’s path of despair merged into a path of praise and trust.  But the only way that he could arrive at joy was through an authentic expression of his distress.  No other path would do.  

These days, when I have my own moments of swirling emotion, I will sometimes do anything to hide my real self.  It seems easier and neater to present a pretty package before God, rather than admit my true and sometimes startling feelings.  But if the Psalms of Lament teach me anything, it’s that God can take my rawest expressions of emotion and turn my face toward praise and hope.  When I risk true lament, it’s not as if all my problems go away, but there is a sense in which I experience, deep within my soul, a communion and intimacy with God that I could not otherwise have had.  I think in some sense, risking lament is part of what it means to live by faith.  It means trusting that, when I am at the end of myself and honest about it, God will still come, commune with me, and ultimately turn my mourning into joy.