Laughter and Lament: The Radical of Freedom of Joy and Sorrow
Digital Verbum Edition
Overview
What do we do with the sadness and the joy that living in a broken world brings to our lives? Most try to avoid the tears and focus on finding happiness, but does that really work? Denial might help to alleviate pain for the short run, but eventually lament must be faced and expressed. Learning to lament honestly to God is the surprising path to learning about real joy.
When we experience or see tragedy, we expect tears, fear, and sometimes anger, and when we experience the good and pleasant, we expect joy and maybe even laughter. However, laughter and lament are often found together in unexpected places. How can we explain the opposite effect—laughter in the pain and tears in the joy?
Steve Brown shares that speaking honestly about the ways we have been hurt and the ways we have hurt others opens the door to the joy of God’s presence even as we grieve. Instead of pretending that everything is fine, going to God with all of our laments fills us with the freedom and joy of knowing his love and forgiveness. This is the surprising message of freedom that Christians have to share with a world where pain is almost always cursed and laughter is almost always cynical.
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- Teaches honest lament to God as a path to real joy
- Explores how laughter and lament can be found together in unexpected places
- Shows how speaking honestly about pain opens the door to God’s joyful presence
- Introduction: An Invitation to a Crazy Book
- Chapter 1: The Surprising Laughter and Lament of God
- Chapter 2: Life Is Hard and Then You Die
- Chapter 3: Life Is Hard and Then You Get Angry
- Chapter 4: Life Is Hard and Then You Repent
- Chapter 5: Life Is Hard and Then You Laugh
- Chapter 6: Control: The Mother of All Addictions
- Chapter 7: The Sound of Silence
- Chapter 8: The Curse of Loneliness
- Chapter 9: Called to Shine
- Chapter 10: Free at Last
- Endnotes
Steve Brown is honest, hilarious, wise, and playful in speech, writing, and life. How often have we said, ‘I laughed, I cried.’ But seldom do we add, ‘and I am transformed and fixed on Jesus.’ This stunning book holds the heartache of the cross and the hilarity of the resurrection as the doorway for the kind of healing that will touch not only the heart but relationships, and even our polarized cultural travail. I promise you will laugh until you cry and then see your tears rise to praise. This book is a feast for healing.
—Dan B. Allender, Professor of Counseling Psychology, The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology; author of Redeeming Heartache
Vintage Steve Brown—earthy, honest, refreshingly self-deprecating, and relentlessly zeroed in on the good news of unearned divine favor. This book will fend off cynicism and foster joy as Steve coaches us all into a life of Christian realism—both happiness and anguish, both uproarious laughter and bristling anger. Healthy Christians experience both, and knowing this fortifies us to live life well.
—Dane Ortlund, Senior Pastor, Naperville Presbyterian Church; author of Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers and Deeper: Real Change for Real Sinners
Laughter and Lament breathes fresh air into the swirl of our emotions and points us to the freedom of learning our feelings aren’t really even about us. They are signposts pointing us to the One who uses everything in our lives and wastes nothing in hope that we will become preoccupied with Jesus. This book gives tangible direction in the ups and downs of life to the promise of the gospel: it is for freedom we have been set free.
—Sharon Hersh, Therapist; author of The Last Addiction and Belonging; speaker; professor