This week in our school community: 10 October 2025

Today we focus on mental health day

 

Today we focus on mental health day, with so many of our community showing their great support dressed in blue for the day to support the work of Mind.  As we focus on the struggles many go through with their mental health, I was intrigued by this article from a Canadian writer, who put her own hardship into the context of faith – drawing upon the tradition of lamenting psalms.

My quest to understand the psalms of lament began in the midst of a deep period of depression. I had spent a wonderfully rich two months in Ethiopia, recording Christian Somali music for broadcast from Ethiopia over Somalia. During my time there I received numerous “prophetic words” that doors would open for me when I returned to Canada. But within a few short months of my return, I was unemployed and living in the basement of a friend’s parent’s house. My familial home had burned down and a friend of mine had died by suicide.

I was deeply disillusioned with God, completely buried under my grief and spent most of my days either in a futile job search or sleeping. During this time I was still leading worship at church and my depression inevitably deepened on the weeks I was to lead worship. At the time I was unable to pinpoint the reason for this, but when I finally began to come out of my depression, I realized that I felt I could not worship God on Sunday mornings—not as I was. Although many individuals and families in the Church supported me in critical ways during this time, I felt wholly excluded when the church gathered for worship. In the midst of my depression, I did not feel I could bring my whole self into a context in which only praise seemed acceptable.

Eventually, as I grew well enough to talk these thoughts over with my pastor and others in the congregation, I began to realize that perhaps the difficulty was not so much with me but with the way I was leading worship. If one of the purposes of the gathered worship of the church is to unify, surely there had to be something wrong with worship services that created feelings of separation from God and God’s people. This conviction grew stronger as I talked with others who had been feeling the same way.

During my depression, the only Scripture passages I had felt able to read were the psalms—specifically the psalms of lament. It seemed right, then, to begin to include in the gathered worship of the Church the Scriptures that had made me feel included in God’s story even in the midst of my depression. I was amazed by the response I received. I began to hear from others who felt they had to leave a part of themselves at the door if they were going to be able to worship God. Not only did these individuals now feel included in the worship of the church, but they also discovered a new capacity for praise.

A biblical lament generally consists of an address to God, a complaint, a request, and an expression of trust. The book of Psalms exists today because the people of Israel used these songs, including the songs of lament, in their worship, and they sang them often enough that the psalms were remembered and recorded for future generations.  By crying out in the midst of our pain to a powerful, merciful and good God, by asking him to intervene, we proclaim the day of Christ's coming. We affirm our trust in his ability to transform this world. This example from Psalm 22, beginning with the very words of Jesus on the cross,  illustrates each of the elements of a psalm of lament: address, complaint, request, and expression of trust.

Address - “My God, my God” (v. 1).

Complaint - “Why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning? (vv. 1-2).

Request- “Lord, do not be far from me. . . . Come quickly to help me. Deliver me from the sword,” (vv. 19-20).

Expression of trust - “Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One; you are the praise of Israel…Yet you brought me out of the womb; you made me feel secure on my mother’s breast. . . . I will declare your name to my people; in the assembly I will praise you” (vv. 3-4, 9, 22).

Stacey Gleddiesmith

Mr Robinson

Lay Chaplain