Oh Lord, we are dying here.
How long? When will it stop?
Who measures our pain to ensure it doesn’t reach its threshold?
For I am convinced we have reached our threshold now.
The sun is gone, winter has never been this cold.
The birds in the sky – they sing a delicate song,
they too are tired of flying around on polluted air.
Now I am talking to the refugee who can’t recognize her own kin
because her country is under siege, burning.
Satan is leading the blind in high places
causing hate and wars.
Souls, they flee
carrying their entire life, fit in a black bag.
Crossing borders, scattered, trapped
like willing prisoners into foreign lands,
where visas and expiry dates spit them back like litter.
They are given a new name that carry and crushes their backs:
refugee, foreigner.
And all we can do is watch nation’s catalogue and record sin
calling injustice information for entertainment.
How long, Lord? When will it stop?
Who measures this pain to ensure it doesn’t reach its threshold?
For I am convinced we have reached our threshold now.
Now I’m talking to the woman mourning the loss of a child.
Who’s grateful to the soil that it covers them.
They are one with the soil for her hands are full
carrying this river of tears and swimming in a sea of
‘Why is this happening?’
Watching and wailing as the world robs them of their children.
God gives and takes away,
God gives and takes away.
Still stillborns, they are born
emptying and turning our sisters’ wombs into graveyards.
Transforming good news of conception into crime scenes.
It will seem our bodies are destined for cemeteries.
Nothing lasts.
We carry this grief and joy at the same time
and sometimes we don’t even give it a name.
Whether to call it sadness, grief, trauma,
depression, anxiety or just life.
The woman raped,
the girl molested,
the child ghosted by her father,
they all need language to define their pain
and reconcile this trauma and ache
with the sovereignty of God.
For the clock keeps turning
and just wants to catch a breath.
You emptied this cup of grief
to fill it up again the next morning.
We have a historical site,
a museum of disappointments.
Lord, how long?
When will you close the curtain on all the suffering?
Who measures this pain to ensure it doesn’t reach its threshold?
For I am convinced we have reached our threshold now.
I’m talking to the woman whose faith is failing,
the woman who’s been praying for a husband,
she’s beginning to question her beauty,
her worthiness.
I’m talking to the woman praying for a child,
waiting for a miracle,
wanting to laugh like Sarah.
For she is prayed out.
I’m talking about the woman trusting God for a job,
the widow,
the girl ghosted by her earthly father
and now feels blue ticked by angels.
How about the one who envies the man
lying on the sidewalk addicted to drugs?
Because she too can’t drag herself out of the bed.
Or wallow like dust in a deep hole without raising questions.
The war in her mind never clears enough time
for her to catch her breath.
They laugh at her hope, turning the story of Lazarus
and the woman with the issue of blood
into a tale, saying, “If God can split seas,
if he can split seas, let him split your storms away.”
Her defeat is defeated.
She is perplexed, she is pressed on every side.
Yet she calls to mind, and therefore she has hope.
She stands in the sun with her deathless courage like Hannah.
Her words are like shovels, they’re digging into God’s promises,
“I am Emmanuel. I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
She is the sensitivity of Nehemiah.
When she receives bad news,
she is on her knees drawing strength
from the source that made her – the great majestic God.
God who does not change like shifting shadows.
The triune cosmic God
who measures water in the hollow of his hands.
With his power, he encloses the dust of the earth
in measure that weighs the mountains and the hills
and quiets her raging seas.
Like the surface of a lake on a windless morning
she calls to mind and feels all the ways God’s grace has kept her
alive even in the midst of devastation.
She is not overcome by accusation about God in her mind.
She calls to mind even though the world is groaning together
as in the pain of child birth. God is with us.
His wisdom is our daily prescription.
When our souls are vacant,
when the veil between earth and heaven so thin,
he can sympathize.
He brings us into the wilderness
and speaks tenderly to us,
“I am with you. My grace is sufficient.”
The mountains in our pathways
are highways to his dwelling place.
In the midst of earthquakes and fire
we shall hear his gentle whisper,
“I am here.”
The Lord Jesus Christ
who can sympathize covers his people
to redeem and to save.
We are not without troubles,
and we are not without help.
But like a weaned child to its mother,
we are quieted souls.
So, the how long is as long as your will be done.
Your kingdom come, forever and ever.
Amen.
