Lament As A Sign of Hope

From InVerse

One tendency of depressed people is to look down, lie down, and no longer get up — to stay where they are: down. They lie prostrate, their faces stuck on the floor, the perfect picture of depression. The very first image of depression in the Bible is Cain’s face: downcast. 

For a depressed person, any upward movement, however little, is a good sign. The crying out to God in Psalm 130 involves a movement. You cannot cry out to God when your head is bowed down or your face is stuck to the floor. The prayer of lament in Filipino is panaghoy. Panaghoy comes from the word taghoy, which means a loud cry, a shout. This fits in very well with Psalm 130 where the people find themselves in the depths, in the pit. You cannot pray silently from there. You have to shout. And you cannot shout or cry for help if your head is bowed down or nakasubsob. You have to raise your head, look upward or even get up if you can, to be able to cry out. 

The raising of the head, the lifting of the face, the looking upward, are signs of hope. Each is an indication of persistence that you are not giving up. Yes, you are in the depths, but that does not mean you intend to stay there. You continue to cry out. You do not give up. Psalm 130 shows indications of persistence and hope. 

But what if you cannot even raise your head? Maybe you have too much guilt, or the depression is just so heavy that you no longer have any strength left to even lift up your head. What then?

I once visited a church member confined at East Avenue hospital. She was suffering from severe stomach pain and shared with me that there were nights she wanted to pray but could not because her pain was so intense. So I tried to help by leading her in a prayer. On my way home, I thought about what she said. How could she pray when she could not even speak? Then I remembered that even our groaning and sighing can be a prayer (Romans 8:26).

We may not be able to raise our heads or utter a word of prayer but we can pour out our hearts to God. As the book of Lamentations says: “pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord” (Lamentations 2:19). The pouring out of our hearts, unlike the raising of the head, is a downward movement. The direction “downward” has a negative connotation as “depression” is downward. But even in the movement downwards, there is hope. There is hope because there is someone down there. May sasalo sa atin.

This is an excerpt from Lord, I’m Depressed: The Lament Psalms and Depression by Rico Villaneuva. This book is available at OMF Lit Bookshops and shop.omflit.com for P150.

“Cheer up!”

“Just pray it away!”

“Christians don’t get depressed!”

All too often, we hear these insensitive words from people who mean well but are misguided on depression.

A way to help is striving to better understand depression and those dealing with it. In Lord, I'm Depressed, Rico Villanueva shares his own journey with depression and his reflections on the Lament Psalms. He writes, "It is through pain, indeed, through the wounds of Jesus, that healing flows."

This book is not about quick fixes, formulas, or false hopes for overcoming depression. It is a profound psychological, biblical, and vulnerable expression of a pastor, scholar, and deeply faithful man of God whose story is, unfortunately, not an exception.