Hopeful Lament: Tending Our Grief Through Spiritual Practices

We need to rediscover lament to heal and hope again.

We've lost the practice of lament. Most people don't know how to process personal or communal mourning and instead struggle to honor their tears, vulnerability, and the full weight of these disillusioning times. But tending our grief might be exactly what we need to reimagine a way forward.

Tracing her difficult experiences of a catastrophic home fire, a threat to her child's well-being, and other devastating losses and upheavals, Terra McDaniel offers a clear framework for expressing heartache and burdens. McDaniel says, "Lament is surprisingly hopeful. As strange as that may sound now, I promise it's true. It's an act of trust both that we can face pain and survive, and that God cares about our anger, confusion, doubt, grief, and fear. Lament refuses to bury pain or, just as dangerous, to give in to despair."

Hopeful Lament makes space for the powerful act of crying out before a loving God and offers provoking reflection questions, embodied practices, and applications for families with children. Learn how to journey gently through suffering.

About the Author
Terra McDaniel is a spiritual director for adults and children. She spent two decades as a pastor and ministry leader and earned her MDiv at Portland Seminary. McDaniel wrote More Than Ordinary with Doug Sherman and is a regular contributor to the Companioning Center blog. She lives with her husband in Austin, Texas, with her twin grandchildren nearby.