Prayer in Pain: A Review of Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy by Mark Vroegop

What is the right way for a Christian to respond when life gets hard? Is it ever okay to feel angry or frustrated with life in a broken world? Does trusting God mean never asking questions, never struggling, or never feeling difficult emotions?

When we encounter pain and loss, we often feel like God isn’t listening or doesn’t care. We know He does, but we don’t quite know how to handle the onslaught of emotions and sorrow. We worry that talking to God about it sounds like complaining, or we simply don’t know what to say. Are we really trusting God if we admit that we are struggling?

In Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy, Mark Vroegop digs deep into the Biblical concept of lament. He argues that lament is not just grieving or feeling sad. Instead, lament is the Christian response to life in a minor key: “a prayer in pain that leads to trust.” Lament puts words to our loss, allowing us to turn to our powerful God in our pain. In so doing, God uses lament to strengthen our faith and change us.

Starting with the Psalms of Lament, Vroegop walks us through four key elements of lament:

• Keep Turning in Prayer
• Bring Your Complaints
• Ask Boldly
• Choose to Trust

In each of these chapters, we learn how to turn to God with our struggles rather than trying to hide them. Vroegop walks us through four Psalms of lament, observing the psalmist’s honest struggles, deep pain, tough questions, and determined trust. He shows us how lament grows our faith and encourages us never to stop speaking to God about our pain.

In Part Two of the book, Vroegop examines lament in the book of Lamentations, showing us how God uses lament in our lives to teach us about the brokenness of the world, invite us to rehearse truth, confront idols, and lead us to grace.

Part Three brings all this teaching together in practical applications that help us engage in lament when we encounter pain and grief in the context of our lives. Vroegop shows us why lament should – indeed, must – be present in the Christian’s life when we struggle with sadness and the effects of sin. Lament helps us find expression for our pain and loss, bringing it to God in biblical complaint. (Do those words sound like they shouldn’t go together? Vroegop demonstrates from the Psalms and other Scripture that they do!)

The book also includes several helpful resources in the appendices, including a list of Psalms of lament and a worksheet that can be used to pattern our prayers after the biblical model using the four elements of lament.

Most of us aren’t naturally good at lament. We’ve been taught to have a stiff upper lip, to soldier on, to never complain. But through lament, God invites us to be honest with Him, while still remaining in a posture of worship and trust.

Whatever dark clouds we may be facing today, Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy provides a biblical framework for turning to God with our pain and meeting Him in trust. In so doing, we find hope and help in his overwhelming mercy.