Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy: Discovering the Grace of Lament Paperback – March 21, 2019

This book is one of my new favorites, and I can't stop recommending it to people. It seems like everyone I know is grieving something—the loss of a friend, a spouse, a marriage, a dream…In Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy, Mark Vroegop doesn't merely give us permission for our tears; he encourages them. He invites us to fully enter our sadness, loneliness, and grief and provides language to express it. His words are a balm to the soul-weary traveler who has cried too many tears to count, providing a soft place for broken hearts to land.Drawing from the Psalms of lament and the book of Lamentations, he lays out a four-step process to help us express our own grief:Turning to GodLaying out our complaintAsking boldly for His helpChoosing to trust“In the midst of the darkest moments of your life, I hope you'll have the courage and conviction to say: 'But I call to mind what God is like. I'm going to rehearse what I know to be true… I'm going to dare to hope.'" — p. 111Whatever grief you have faced, are facing now, or will face in the future, THIS BOOK is essential!!

A needed and timely book on how to lament Biblically - i.e. how to grieve the real pain in your life whilst still retaining hope and trust in God. Christians who are walking through hard seasons - or who know friends/family who are - will find this book both Biblical and helpful to comfort those who grieve.

I first heard of this book from a friend who drew from it as he wrote some thoughts that were shared at my best friend‘s funeral. That was three years ago.Sometime this past year, I began a good conversation with a new friend who serves as one of the pastors at my church. In our first conversation, I wasn’t expecting to, but the dam broke as I began once again honestly to ask why my best friend was gone. This book once again came up in conversation with my friend later on.As I finished it this morning, I am thanking God for how his Word meets us even when pain is too deep for words. I think He will continue to use this book and ones like it in my life.

Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy, Discovering the Grace of Lamentby Mark Vroegop (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2019), 223 pp., paper, $11.69Following the stillborn death of his daughter Sylvia in 2004, Pastor Mark Vroegop experienced deep sorrow for the first time in his life. This period of sorrow started Vroegop on a lifelong journey in lament, which was a means of grace to his soul (p. 195). As he began to look at the world with new eyes, he understood that Christians do grieve during times of suffering great loss, but they grieve not as the unbeliever grieves. “Lament is how Christians grieve” (p. 21), and without it “we won’t know how to process pain” (p. 21). “Lament,” the author writes, “is the honest cry of a hurting heart wrestling with the paradox of pain and the promise of God’s goodness” (p. 26).Vroegop provides the layout for the book in the Introduction:This book charts a course for our journey. It will take us through an exploration of four lament psalms and the one biblical book dedicated to the subject: Lamentations. In part 1, I’ll try to help you learn to lament. In part 2, I hope to show you what we learn from lament. And finally, in part 3, we’ll explore how to live with lament—both personally and with others (p. 22).Time and again Vroegop articulates the four key elements of lament: turn [to God], present your complaint, ask in prayer (make a request), and trust the Lord (an expression of trust and/or praise) (p. 29). Turning to the Psalms, he notes how frequently the Psalmists asks two pertinent questions: Why and how? (pp. 43-54). In the first part of the book, Vroegop traces the four key elements, as well as two common questions through four lament psalms: psalms 77, 10, 22, and 13.Part two is a delightful study of lament in the often neglected Old Testament book of Lamentations (pp. 89-153). The heart of this examination is the four truths upon which Jeremiah anchored his soul and is drawn from 3:22-33 (pp. 112-119): God’s mercy never ends; waiting is not a waste; the final word has not been spoken; and God is always good.Part three is the application section of Dark Clouds. Vroegop writes the following:In part 3 we are going to explore ways lament can be practiced from a personal or corporate perspective. We are going to move from learning to lament and learning from lament toward learning how to live with lament (p. 158).Here we are told that “lament helps us embrace two truths at the same time: hard is hard; hard is not bad” (p. 184).The book provides four useful appendixes, including one identifying the psalms of lament by category, a bibliography, a general index, and a scripture index. These, along with the footnotes, are unusual but valuable features in a popular work such as Dark Clouds.The only portion of the book in which I had difficulty were examples that he gave of a prayer gathering with other pastors in which one pastor “called on God with an authority that was strangely refreshing” (p. 57). He was attracted to such bold authority when calling on God and transferred this attraction to the Psalms. I believe at this point Vroegop is confusing biblical confidence with questionable boldness that demands God to act, which I believe transcends confidence. No one, including the biblical authors, dare command God (cf. pp. 60, 66 where he confuses confidence and boldness again). I also question a prayer meeting at his church for parents of wayward children to return to the Lord. And while the grief of some parents seemed to be eclipsed by the boldness of the prayers of others, there was no indication in the story that any of the prayers were answered. My point is not that we should not pray with confidence, but that we go a step too far when we boldly tell God what He should do. Perhaps this is not what Vroegop is implying, but this section struck me as a bit over the top.At any rate, Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy is a valuable and accessible study of lament drawn from the Old Testament Scriptures. Many will be comforted by what is written here.Reviewed by Gary E. Gilley, Southern View Chapel

Verses used is not KJV.If this book used the KJV I would give it 5 stars.The KJV is more precise and actually relates best with his points.Look up the verses yourself in the KJV!Besides that, it’s an excellent book and very helpful for the sorrow filled and broken hearted.

If you or someone you love is struggling to understand where God is in your grief and pain, this is a must read.