Sometimes You Feel Like Screaming

Sometimes you feel like screaming. Not because you are being dramatic or because you are trying to draw attention to yourself, but because you have reached your emotional capacity. You have had enough. Too much noise, too much loss, too much pressure, too many “be strong” moments stacked on top of each other. You are done. At some point the pressure valve has to be turned and released. You scream.

The Bible is honest about this feeling. There are many instances in which individuals cried out to God for help, relief, and rescue. There’s a line in the Psalms that sounds like a holy scream: “How long, O Lord?” (Psalm 13) This is not a gentle prayer. It is a painful cry and a soulful scream for God to do something in the psalmist’s life. It is raw emotion, open rounds, and hardcore reality expressed to God.

Sometimes in our faith upbringing, we might be told to bury those screams and that it is improper to raise our voices to God. The thought here is that God wants quiet, well-mannered children who keep such emotions to themselves and hidden beneath prayers of “God is great, God is good.” How dare we speak to God in such a way?

But scripture gives us permission to bring our whole selves to God, including the part of us that wants to yell, “This is not okay!” Even Jesus had moments that sounded like a scream. On the cross he cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). That wasn’t a lack of faith. That was faith refusing to pretend.

God is not intimidated by our volume. God receives us just as we are. God accepts our silences, our whispers, and our screams. God will never reject his children regardless of how we come to him. We can take comfort knowing that we will always be received and embraced by the same grace and love.

God is always near the brokenhearted. God understands us. And even when our words can only be expressed in screams of sorrow, pain, frustration, anger, disappointment, fear, and the like, God will take what we offer him and hold it close to his own heart. God is near, even in our screaming.