Make Room for Lament

How might modeling this practice create deeper connection and healing in your community?

Jeremiah 9:20

Teach your daughters how to wail; teach one another a lament.

Jeremiah’s call to “teach your daughters how to wail” underscores the sacred and necessary practice of lament. In a world that often urges us to move quickly past pain or mask it with false hope, this command insists that sorrow must be named, felt, and shared. Lament is not weakness; it is a holy and courageous act that refuses to ignore injustice, loss, or suffering.

Teaching lament—especially to the next generation—passes down the wisdom that grief has a rightful place in life and faith. It forms communities that can hold sorrow together rather than suffer alone. In modeling lament, we offer others permission to voice their deepest aches before God, trusting that even in wailing, God listens.

Lament opens space for truth-telling, healing, and the slow birth of hope. Without it, our faith risks becoming shallow and disconnected from the real struggles of life.

Where in your life are you being invited to make space for honest lament? How might modeling this practice create deeper connection and healing in your community?

—Pepa Paniagua