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• Illustration: Vanderwell tells of a church someone visited that, to his surprise, kept Kleenex in the sanctuary, indicating that it was permissible to cry.
• Psalms of lament are placed in God's Word to help us get in touch with the pain inside.

• Psalm 10, 22, 42, 88
• We tend to neglect the psalms of lament because we think that crying and complaining to God show poor faith.
• Because of this, many Christians live in denial, covering up their emotions and bottling their pain.

• We need these laments because there's so much pain in the world.
• We need these laments because we must be honest with God.
• We need laments for the integrity of the Christian faith.
• We express our pain, raise our questions, and vent our feelings of abandonment to God in the context of trust.

• The first cause is pain— physical, emotional, mental or spiritual.
• The second cause is a delay in the disappearance of our pain.
• The third cause is unanswered prayer.
• The fourth cause is the abandonment we feel, stemming from our frustration with unanswered prayers.
• The fifth cause is the doubting of God and ourselves as we wait for God's answers.

• As David experiences in Psalm 13, sharing your deepest thoughts and struggles with God bonds you to him and brings his healing to your spirit.
• We reaffirm our trust in God.
• We hold on.
• We await the day of Christ's return, when our pain will be resolved and our circumstances will be different.