When 'Hallelujah' Becomes a Cry for Help

August 2023 Devotional

This reflection is dedicated to those who struggled this week, feeling more grief than joy, and feeling numb even when everyone around them seemed to be passionate about worship. You are seen and loved.

In our last session at Revoice 23, I talked about how sometimes a truly ‘trauma-informed joy’ is only possible after we’ve had the space to cry and lament first—then, after weeping, a deeper, redemptive kind of joy emerges. But what about those for whom the ‘after’ is still so far away? What does it look like to still say “hallelujah anyway” when the landscape stretching out in front of us as far as the eye can see is still the land of bitterness and numbness? Words like “hallelujah” feel different coming out these mouths that are parched from thirst as we stumble through the desert alone—but what if we’re allowed to shout “hallelujah” not just as a happy-clappy celebration but as a desperate cry for help?

This song has given my tired, trauma-riddled heart permission to do just that: to let my “hallelujah” be a last-ditch plea for God to come through on the promises he’s made that still seem so far off.

I discovered this song just before my second Christmas estranged from [biological] family. I was walking down a dark street alone in a different city after attending a large Christian conference, and I felt numb. I’d been a leader at this conference, but frankly, I felt like a fraud: I hadn’t prayed for a long time, and I recoiled at the idea of reading the Bible on my own because it felt more like a weapon wielded against me than the voice of a friend. I even questioned my faith—do real Christians feel this way? That’s when the Holy Spirit worked through the Spotify algorithm. This song started playing out of nowhere and God showed me that he doesn’t need my ‘best’.

He is not so anxiously-attached that he needs my constant affirmation. He is strong enough, and securely attached enough, that he wants the real me, even with all my despair and numbness. So this song became a song I could sing and pray without pretending I liked God more than I did. There’s something powerful about worship that emerges from the pit. Anyone can find something to thank God for when they’re in the land of abundance (though even then we forget!) but the person who croaks out a weak “hallelujah” from the place of heartbreak shows an extraordinary faith.

This is the kind of faith Jesus lauded when the poverty-stricken widow gave her last two coins. God loves to hear our worship, even if all we have left to offer are tears.

They may be all you have left, but those tears are precious to God.

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