A Journey of Lament

For the last several months I have been quietly navigating through a bumpy and unpredictable journey called Lament.  This Journey of Lament has resulted in my traversing several uncharted and dusty, lonely roads.  The first two roads I came upon are called Sadness and Mourning.  On these roads are my thoughts of the hundreds of thousands of lives lost and the unimaginable suffering due to a tiny unseen enemy called COVID-19.  As I continued on this journey, I came to an intersection called Witness.  At this intersection I watched as our country and its institutions took a sharp turn down a dark dead-end road called Racism.  As I traveled further, I hit the potholes of our country’s collective apathy and unwillingness to repent for our sinful treatment towards our brothers and sisters who look, act, speak and live differently than us.  On my journey I rested at a turnout called Acknowledgement. Stopping for a while at Acknowledgement I became aware of the fact that our refusal to repent from the sin of racism has resulted in our innocent children once again bearing witness to and suffering from it.  Lament has also taken me down a road called Realization. While traveling down this road I came to realize that our country may never completely fulfill its dream. The dream where all people experience equality and those “certain unalienable rights” that were promised.  

I am very road weary and I remember that I have been on my journey for a long, long time.  This long Journey of Lament has had so many switchbacks and U-turns that to try and get my bearings at this point would be impossible. Most of the usual tools one would use to chart a course that would assure this journey ends in a sunny green meadow complete with rainbows and singing birds are absent from me now.  A road sign, GPS or Northern Star are nowhere to be found.  Therefore, I will trust my journey to the two unchangeable navigators available: prayer and faith.  This journey might bring me to a dead end, or I might go off a cliff.  I just do not know.  Only my faithful traveling companion knows. He charted my course through this journey long before He even put that Northern Star in the night sky.  He knows the way and where and how my Journey of Lament will end.  And He has promised me that my journey will end in a place He named New Heaven and New Earth.  This promise is the final destination from my Journey of Lament. He is leading me there.  His promise is the road sign I seek. It is my beautiful Northern Star.  I am on a road that leads to His promise.  I will continue until I reach my final destination. At the Destination He has prepared for me “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”