Learning to Lament
How to Write Your Own Psalm — and Why It Helps
In the early days after my diagnosis, I found myself in the grip of emotions I had never faced before. Anger. Regret. Fear. Grief so heavy it felt like it might swallow me whole.
And I didn’t want to talk about it. I wanted to fix it.
So I ran to doctors, the internet, experts, research articles—anything that promised answers or control. But none of it could touch the ache inside me. The despair remained, gnawing and relentless.
Words felt cheap. Pointless. Incapable of changing the thing I most wanted changed. And even if I could express what I was feeling… who would want to hear it? The thoughts circling my mind felt too dark and too heavy to hand to anyone else.
One particularly hard day, feeling like I might explode under the weight of it all, I opened my journal and started writing.
I expected nothing from it.
Instead, I found relief.
Not because my circumstances changed.
Not because I suddenly felt peaceful.
But because the truth finally had somewhere to go.
Later, when I read through the Psalms, I began to understand why.
The Psalms are filled with lament.
David — who wrote many of them — was a man deeply acquainted with fear, grief, betrayal, injustice, and despair. And instead of hiding those emotions, he brought them directly to God.
Raw. Honest. Unfiltered.
And somehow, again and again, those prayers bend toward hope.
Not shallow optimism.
Not denial.
But remembrance.
The pattern repeats throughout scripture:
deep sorrow honestly brought before God somehow becomes the very place where trust begins to grow again.
Writing my own psalms became one of the ways I survived cancer treatment. So I want to offer it to you too.
How to Write Your Own Psalm
Tell the truth.
What terrifies you?
What feels unfair, unbearable, or crushing?
Do not edit yourself into sounding spiritual.
Tell the truth.
2. Say it to God
Not about Him.
To Him.
The Psalms are deeply personal:
“Where are You?”
“Why have You abandoned me?”
“How long, O Lord?”
Keep writing until you feel you have finally said what you actually mean.
3. Remember
Many psalms turn here.
The writer remembers who God has been before considering what is happening now.
Where have you seen Him sustain you?
What mercy can you still point to?
Sometimes a transition helps:
“This is how I feel… AND…”
“My world feels like it is collapsing… BUT…”
“Yet this I call to mind…”
4. Ask
What do you want God to do?
Ask for healing.
Deliverance.
Justice.
Peace.
Relief.
Strength.
Do not worry about whether the request feels reasonable or possible.
Bring Him the real desire.
5. End honestly
Not forced positivity.
Not:
“Everything happens for a reason.”
Not:
“It’s all fine.”
Some psalms end in hope.
Some end exhausted.
Some end unresolved.
Sometimes faith simply sounds like:
“Meet me here.”
And that is enough.
Psalm 38
A Psalm of David, for the memorial offering.
1 O Lord, rebuke me not in your anger,
nor discipline me in your wrath!
2 For your arrows have sunk into me,
and your hand has come down on me.
3 There is no soundness in my flesh
because of your indignation;
there is no health in my bones
because of my sin.
4 For my iniquities have gone over my head;
like a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me.
5 My wounds stink and fester
because of my foolishness,
6 I am utterly bowed down and prostrate;
all the day I go about mourning.
7 For my sides are filled with burning,
and there is no soundness in my flesh.
8 I am feeble and crushed;
I groan because of the tumult of my heart.
9 O Lord, all my longing is before you;
my sighing is not hidden from you.
10 My heart throbs; my strength fails me,
and the light of my eyes—it also has gone from me.
11 My friends and companions stand aloof from my plague,
and my nearest kin stand far off.
12 Those who seek my life lay their snares;
those who seek my hurt speak of ruin
and meditate treachery all day long.
13 But I am like a deaf man; I do not hear,
like a mute man who does not open his mouth.
14 I have become like a man who does not hear,
and in whose mouth are no rebukes.
15 But for you, O Lord, do I wait;
it is you, O Lord my God, who will answer.
16 For I said, “Only let them not rejoice over me,
who boast against me when my foot slips!”
17 For I am ready to fall,
and my pain is ever before me.
18 I confess my iniquity;
I am sorry for my sin.
19 But my foes are vigorous, they are mighty,
and many are those who hate me wrongfully.
20 Those who render me evil for good
accuse me because I follow after good.
21 Do not forsake me, O Lord!
O my God, be not far from me!
22 Make haste to help me,
O Lord, my salvation!
My Own Psalms
I hesitated to include these.
They feel exposed and unfinished.
But perhaps that is the point.
The Psalms in scripture are not polished either. They are cries from people who were suffering and trying not to let go of God in the middle of it.
So here are a few excerpts from my own journal during treatment.
July 31, 2024 (2 treatments into chemo starting)
How long O Lord will you ignore my crisis?
How long will you hide your face?
I feel utterly abandoned, let down, disappointed.
I am afflicted on all sides, and when I feel a hint of stability I am pulled under again!
Is it not enough that they are injecting me with poison, uncertain if it will do anything?
That my hair is falling out in chunks
My humanity and sense of self going down the drain with it
They smirk at my questions, refusing to give answers!
I feel utterly defeated.
Each new piece of information is crippling
I feel I am downing and I fear everyone feels drained by me
Lord, where are you? Show up! Do Something! Wake up!
Are you just watching me with indifference? Do you not care?
Have mercy on me Lord! Deliver me from cancer and from despair!
Stop crushing me! Give me grace! Draw near!
Stop turning your face from me! Stop ignoring me and putting me off!
Your silence is deafening. I am sinking in it.
You said you were my Father but you look the other way!
I ask for relief, and you give me a scorpion!
If it is otherwise, please reveal that to me. Show me you are here!
My heart is broken, my mind is spiraling, and you feel passive and absent.
This is too much for me to bear!
September 21, 2024
I cry out to you day and night! Will you let this cancer end my life?
Let it take over my organs and bones?
Let it steal my children’s mother, and my husband’s wife?
My body wears away. I am desperate for life and health.
I don’t want to be on medications forever- miserable, sick and fearful.
Will you let fear overpower me?
Where are you God? When I call you don’t answer
When I cry out I just feel more confused.
And yet I keep coming back to you again and again.
You are the only one to hope in!
The only place I can turn to.
You are Sovereign over life and death.
You are working even when I can’t see it.
I might not get what I want.
I might die.
But I still have to trust you, my God, my King, Adonai.
You do not need to be a writer, poet, or theologian to lament honestly before God. You simply need the courage to tell the truth. Open your journal, your laptop, the notes app on your phone—whatever you have—and begin where you are. Even halting, unfinished prayers can become a lifeline when they are brought honestly before Him.