Singing Through Pain?

"By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion...How shall we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land?

Israel had been exiled to Babylon, a strange land where everything was new: customs, cultures, and conditions to put it mildly.  The people yearned for the familiar, much as they had centuries earlier during their forty-year sojourn to the "Promised Land."  Their moorings had been snatched away, violently, with little or no regard for their feelings.  They were captives! Yet they were expected to deal with this cataclysmic upheaval. You're kidding, right? Wrong! Israel's captivity represented grievous loss: personal, collective, cultural, religious freedom, and more,  that would last longer than many of them would live. 

A new terrain, Babylon. So many adjustments to make!  No wonder they sat down and wept. No wonder the plaintive cry of a freedom-deprived people.  How would they survive? In fact, would, could they survive? What do you do when everything you have ever known goes poof? Where a lifetime of living becomes a wisp of smoke? The world as they had known it, that they had taken for granted,  was no more.  Yet sadly, they had not  been blessed with amnesia.

Sound familiar? Like when a loved one dies; a family member goes missing; a relationship disintegrates, a faithful pet, as precious as any family member, wastes away? Like layoffs and downsizings run rampant.; divorces vie with marriages;  and hundreds more devastations? The utter loneliness, the despicable silences and unanswered questions that grow like weeds; well-meaning friends who can only answer a question with another, or "I don't know."  How can you be expected to pick up shattered, jagged pieces of existence and "keep it moving," as current vernacular puts it.  How? 

How can life ever be normal again? How do you deal with the "New Normal?"  What was ever normal, for heaven's sake! How can we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land? Death, desertion, and despair are one-way, dead-end streets to nowhere, aren't they? Sing? When? When the crying jags stop? Will they ever? Why do only  questions plague while no answers come forth? 

But wait! Through the prophet Jeremiah, Jehovah reassures Israel: "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for wholeness and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope" (Jeremiah 29:11).   Centuries later, Jesus assured "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you" (Matthew 7:7), the blessed promise burst forth.  Is it simply that we must be taught that it's "kosher" (excuse the pun) to ask for what we want or need; to seek, (actively look for)  answers, and they will be found. to knock at the door of  knowledge, wisdom, and truth, and it will be opened? Hmm. 

When I need peace that surpasses all understanding, I should ask?  If I need protection in a cruel world, ask? If worry has become my constant companion and I just want a peaceful eight hours of shut-eye, all I need to do is ask?  If my questions don't make sense, even to me, should I still ask? Yes! Yes! Yes!