Life is hard. It is an epic journey full of loss and victory, hope and despair, confusion and uncertainty.
There is no greater indicator of the uncertainty of life than pain. If we could control life, there would be no pain. Or, at the very least, no pain for ME. That there is so much hurt is a reality we have to face.
The Bible has a lot of passages of lament. At least half of the human experience is an exercise of lament. A groaning from the pains. A sadness for the way things are. Even more than that, it is the uncertainty that causes us pain. We do not understand. We are not god.
Which is why so often we try to be god. We think that if we can control everything, we can eliminate our pain and our need for lament.
Lamenting is held in high esteem in Scripture. Like in this verse from Ecclesiastes, a lament is an expression that we do not understand. That we are hurt or confused.
These kinds of circumstances are an opportunity to trust God. To acknowledge that He is divine and we are not. And that is not just something to lament, but something to celebrate. That our imperfect experience is not the whole story. That the goodness of all things does not depend on our understanding.
God is up to so much more than we can imagine. He is eternally good, even when our circumstances are confusing, disappointing, or painful. And all of our laments are an opportunity to place our trust in Him.