Twenty one years ago while on a year sabbatical from our work in India, I entered the darkest period of my life. It was not a day, a week, or a month. It was extended. To call it ‘burn-out’ is probably getting close, but doesn’t quite describe it as some aspects of my life continued seemingly unaffected. Perhaps the closest description was ‘chronic emotional fatigue’. For several years in India, a series of struggles and conflicts had gone on along with the very normal trials of life with a growing work and a young family. I was carrying eight different ministry positions, way more than I should have. And whatever you want to call that season, it was dark.

In about the middle of the year, (and thank goodness I had taken a sabbatical or who knows what would have happened), I came across a Psalm that I had read many times. But at this season it had a power and resonance I had never experienced before. It was Psalm 88, and especially the last verse: ‘darkness is my closest friend‘. Those words jumped out, as if I had never read them before. Somehow they expressed a deep place in my soul- of darkness, and a hard to explain intimacy with that darkness. You mean that this is really in the Bible?

Psalm 88 is one of many ‘psalms of lament’ in the book of Psalms. They were originally songs sung in worship at times of personal or group suffering, often mourning the felt absence of God. In the years leading up to this period of darkness in my life, the Psalms had already become in some ways the most important part of the Bible to me. And really it has ever since. The Psalms are the expression of the cry of our soul, whether in joy and praise, or sorrow and lament. Eugene Peterson, beloved pastor and teacher, said that the psalms of lament in some ways make up about two thirds of the book. Others may put that figure lower, but all recognize that many of these ancient songs bring right into worship some of the rawest feelings of abandonment, confusion, and pain.

Biblical lament has a particular form to it: the complaint or suffering of the ‘How long, O Lord?’ or another expression of the cry of the soul, followed virtually always with the ‘yet I will trust in the Lord’ or words similar. The groan of despair ending with the resolution of hope because God is still there, even if we don’t feel it. And every psalm of lament ends with some expression of hope, except one. Psalm 88. In this post, I am calling it the ‘darkest psalm in the Bible’. It not only expresses the sense of abandonment and absence common to lament, but does so without a resolution of hope. Why on earth would it be included in the scriptures?

Perhaps the simplest reason is because that is sometimes the reality of life here on earth. There are times in all of our lives when people die without being healed, when prayers aren’t answered. Collective or personal tragedies happen, and there is no justice here on earth. Wars and rumors of wars abound, and global peace seems a pipe dream. And yet….. in the literature of lament in the Bible, hope is indeed at the end. But not in Psalm 88. That Psalm stands alone, providing from the scriptures a testimony to the raw and naked darkness at times in the human experience.

We don’t know why Psalm 88 is in the Bible, or why it was written. The author is said to be Heman the Ezrahite, who is listed several times in the Old Testament as a worship leader under King David. There are some clues in tradition from Heman’s own life and suffering that may help us understand how he could write this Psalm. I will go into those possibilities in a next post. But for now it is important to know there are indeed times of darkness in our lives and journeys. When we go through these seasons, and most of us will, we can know that we are not strange or beyond redemption.

Psalm 88 tells us that these experiences of seemingly unresolved lament do belong in the full expression of a life on earth. But all around it are other Psalms, and other parts of scripture like the book of Lamentations, where hope and the presence of God is still testified to. A few years ago, I was struggling in an area of my life where I was seeing no answers or relief, only the lament of ‘how long, O Lord, until you change this.’ But as I looked at other areas of life, there were clear signs of God’s work. Sometimes we need to look at our whole life and see the places where there is light, and let that light encourage us in the darkness.

As I come to the end of this post, I do want to encourage us all to get the help we need in times of darkness and suffering. Very seldom can we make it through all by ourselves. Depression is a very real thing with varying causes and degrees of strength, and I have experienced elements and seasons of this as have people close to me. Please do get the help you need, either from a counselor/therapist, spiritual director, life coach, friend, or all of the above.

A primary purpose of this post is to say that we can be honest about going through times of burn out or darkness, even if we are pastors, missionaries, leaders of companies, whoever we are or whatever we do. And that the Bible itself gives us language for those seasons of struggle and pain, the language of lament. It is not ‘negative’ to be open about our pain and times of darkness. Rather it is life-giving, and that may be true for us or for someone else that needs to know that they are not isolated in their battle.

Psalm 88 may end with darkness as our closest friend, but the very next Psalm, written by Ethan, starts off in verse 1 with ‘Your love, God, is my song and I’ll sing it! I’m forever telling everyone how faithful you are.’

Don’t give up today, the love and faithfulness of God is near.

Additional note: The phrase that starts this post, ‘You want it darker?’ comes from one of the last songs written by Canadian poet/songwriter/author/singer Leonard Cohen before he died in 2016. He had his own bouts of inner darkness and severe depression but in his last couple decades had come to a greater inner place of peace. Somehow I missed his music in my teenage years, then went off to India in my early 20’s. Cohen is most famously known for his song ‘Hallelujah’ which has been covered by several artists. I had heard this song several times, and even heard his name, but knew virtually nothing about him or his other songs. On a 40 day retreat doing the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius in October in Canada, one of the facilitators played the Cohen song ‘If it be Your will’. I was stunned by the song, and that led to the last few months listening to more of his songs, reading one of his novels and two biographies of him. More on him in a future post.