[A note from our Managing Editor: Tim Shorey, pastor and author, is one of our Gospel-Centered Discipleship staff writers. Tim is also currently battling stage 4 prostate cancer. On Facebook and CaringBridge, he’s writing about his journey. We’re including some of his posts in a series on our website called “The Potter’s Clay: Faith Reflections from a Cancer Oven.” To preserve the feel of a daily journal rather than a published work, we have chosen not to submit these reflections to a rigorous editing process.]

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Dear Journal,

Here is an early morning lament that’s been wrung from my heart in recent hours. I have not checked much for grammar or even for strict theological accuracy. I have only expressed what I have felt, knowing that God will not rebuke my tears.

But first, for those who do not know, I am battling stage four cancer along with a variety of other trials that are too many, too deep, and too stubbornly persistent to mention here. My ordeals have been so hard that when some have learned of them all, they’ve called me a modern-day Job. I would not make such a claim for my life, since his sorrows were far greater and more unspeakably severe than mine. But have my hard times and trials turned out Job-like? Perhaps. But no more than that.

One way that my trials have been Job-like is that they have touched many if not all of the areas of my life. Physical. Spiritual, Familial. Financial. Cultural. Ecclesiastical. I grieve over trials in each and all of these—which is why there have been moments when the sorrows and griefs have poured out of me in waves.

And this is one such moment. I have chosen to post this lament, both because I have needed to release my many sorrows, and because it may give voice to others in their sorrows. We all need to lament and to let others do the same. This is that for my sake and for others.

Again, this lament poured out of me recently, and is an unfiltered expression of my sorrow. Please don’t look for literary polish or even theological precision. This is just me being real.

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O Lord my God: how long and how hard the road has been. I am tired of being tired and weighed down by many griefs.

My friends see the outside and cannot tell that I am sick. “You look good,” they say. And maybe I do. My face is washed, my hair is combed and my smile is real and ready (for despite my many woes, I truly have tasted the sweet goodness of God).

But they cannot hear that I moan all the day long. They know that I am weary with my groaning, but they cannot feel what I feel. Mine is private stone-built cell, with bars of pain and sorrow surrounding me. I cannot escape, though I have prayed a thousand prayers for rescue. My body is weary and worn, and refuses to be healed. And the measures that delay my disease for the moment feel worse than the disease itself.

Why o Lord do you not hear when I call? Why have sickness and sorrow become the marrow in my bones? Why do tears fill my eyes time and again and again?

I am beset on every side, and there is no relief. When I awaken, my head pounds without ceasing. I groan whenever I stand, and sigh in my weakness whenever I sit down. My joints ache, and bone decay shortens my steps, and keeps me from lifting. My head droops with weariness every day, and my movements have slowed nearly to a stop.

O dear Father, your children are oppressed around the world. We cry out in a godless age, and fight even among ourselves. And few truly listen in all the land. The blast of many voices overloads my senses, pins me to the wall, and renders my voice as but a whisper in the face of a gale.

And beyond all that, I plead, and I plead again, for the salvation of all I love. But my arm is too short to reach them and save.

What have I done o Lord that you should afflict me all these many days. I know I am a sinner, but are not all mortals guilty before you? Is there unconfessed sin or doubt or fear within me that fuels the endless flames of my grief? I know that your afflictions are for my good, so I will trust in your purposes. But I cannot understand those purposes, and I am weary of trying.

When I was young, you afflicted with poverty and family illnesses. And now in my disease and old age, I am spent each day, while the morning is still young.

Out of the depths I cry to you

O Lord please won’t you heed?

I’m sinking Lord, what can I do?

For mercy I still plead.

Yet in all of this, I will not forsake the God of my youth while in my old age. Though I may not see him or hear him, I will believe that since I am here, he must have been here first. And I will trust that here means near. He is the Creator of the ends of the earth; my unmade Maker and everlasting God. And through my tears I know that my Redeemer lives, and I know that he is able to keep me to the very end.

Please hear me now o Lord, for I need you every hour.

* You can read all the posts in this series here.