JOHN UPTON from the

President Ebola: Praying the Wound According to an old Jewish legend, King David kept his

windows open at night. When the breezes would flow through his chamber, the strings on his harp would quiver, making sound. This would get him out of bed to compose a psalm. I really like that legend about David, in part because it points

to the truth that the Psalms really do mysteriously stir something deep within us, but mostly because David couldn’t sleep. The things we read in the Psalms are the very things that keep us up at night. While there are beautiful expressions of trust and wonderful praises in the Psalms, there are also anxieties, troubles, regrets, guilt, confusion, and panic. I was reminded of this most poignantly in a prayer given by a

Liberian pastor whose congregation has suffered illness and death from the Ebola outbreak. He quoted Psalm 13 in his prayer: “How long, oh Lord? Will you forget me forever? Must I bear pain in my soul and sorrow in my heart all day long? Answer me, oh Lord and my God, or I must sleep the sleep of death.” Do you pray like that? In all honesty, how can we not? We

can never have real freedom, or even know the true depth of love, until we have stood in God’s presence and are truthful with our pain. I hugged my friend after the prayer and felt him sob. Yes, we have countless reasons to be thankful and we have

countless reasons to bask in the pleasures of so many blessings on our lives but the fact also is true that we grieve, we ache, we struggle, and we worry. We churn with fears and regrets. We are frustrated by our limitations and constrictions. There are seasons in our lives when it all falls apart. Somebody is sick, in trouble, and it is breaking our hearts. The Liberian congregation said that a dark shadow had fallen across their lives. Peace that they once had is now buried under the weight of spiritual and emotional anguish. One brother shared that he had 10 siblings; nine have died due to the outbreak. Sometimes I wonder if prayer should be a nicer thing. So, we

say our thanks. We pray our requests as politely and earnestly as we can. We pray for help here and there. But, we don’t cry out our total brokenness. We don’t spill out our raw hurt. We don’t ask questions, dark questions, that move and bleed within us. Maybe it never occurred to us that such questions and emotions should be poured out into the light. Maybe we hold back because it is the very nature of pain to close us in on ourselves. There is something in the experience of suffering that is much

like the force of a spider spinning around us a thick white numbing web of silence. Pain wants to make us mute. So, we withdraw. We withdraw spiritually, relationally. We tend to shut down. It is the double poison. It is not just the pain but the isolation it wants to

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impose. Many of our brothers and sisters in Africa are feeling the pain of that isolation. Jesus said that to enter the Kingdom of

God you must become like a child. Whatever else he may have had in mind, there is at least this: children tell the truth about what they feel and what they need. And children will make honest complaints and raise honest questions, which seem to be inseparable from the fact that children are also willing to be held in somebody’s arms. My Liberian friend ended his prayer with a

quote from another Psalm, saying, “Those that go forward weeping, sowing with tears, will come home with shouts of joy.” I have been challenged. I have been

challenged to be more consistently truthful with myself, with others, and especially with God with my questions, regrets, guilt, and anguish. Do we understand that God can be trusted

with anything? Abraham Herschel said there are three ascending levels of grief. The first level of grief is tears. The second level is silence. The third level is song. Our friends in Ebola stricken places are

teaching us this. So, let’s tell the truth, trusting God to sort it out, and in time, the right time, to put a new resounding song in our trusting, grateful hearts.