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I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear the Lord and put their trust in him. (Psalm 40:1-3)

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At the reception following Kevin\u2019s funeral yesterday, I heard some version of the same comment pass over a few people\u2019s lips.\xa0 It was a noticing that in this same space of visitation and funeral over the past couple days laughter and weeping, smiles and tears were often layered over top of one another.\xa0 A memory that brings a laugh in one corner of the room while a confrontation with the weight of loss cracks into weeping and embrace in the other.\xa0 Sometimes these two very different emotions poured out of the same person at the same time.

And that is exactly how life is.\xa0 The good and the bad get all stirred up together in ways that we just can\u2019t pull apart so easily.\xa0 Experience continues to defy our categories and our desire for simplicity.

Psalm 40 testifies to the same.\xa0 It opens with a strong word of praise and thanks to God.\xa0 We pray: God answers.\xa0 We\u2019re in trouble: God pulls us up from the slimy pit and sets our feet back on solid rock.\xa0

But if you would continue reading the psalm, you would find other experiences intertwined.\xa0 \u201cDo not withhold your mercy from me, Lord... for troubles without number surround me,\u201d the psalmist writes.\xa0 The psalm finally ends with the simple prayer \u201cyou are my God, do not delay.\u201d

Both of these prayers were prayed yesterday too.\xa0 The prayer of thanks that Kevin has been healed and made whole in the presence of God was there.\xa0 Jesus has lifted him out of the mud and mire and set his feet on the rock.\xa0 Kevin will never again be shaken.\xa0 Thanks be to God.

And yet, in his death, a gaping wound of emptiness and loss has just been violent ripped into the lives of so many others.\xa0 Even as Kevin has been lifted out of the pit, so many others have fallen in.\xa0 And so the other prayer is there too: \u201cdo not withhold your mercy from them, Lord... you are their God, do not delay.\u201d

These two prayers are stirred up together in ways that we just can\u2019t pull apart so easily.\xa0 Just like in the psalm, the paradox can\u2019t be resolved in either direction.\xa0 It can only be lived.\xa0 Prayed.\xa0 Sung.\xa0 Grieved.\xa0

At least, that\u2019s the way it is here and now in this life.\xa0 There will come a day though when the first words of the psalm become the final words for all of us. \xa0A day when God himself will resolve the paradox and finally bring our dissonate chords to harmony.\xa0

And that\u2019s ultimately what keeps us living and praying.\xa0 That\u2019s what keeps the confession of this God on our lips whether our prayer is praise or lament.\xa0 We trust that Jesus will return to lift us all up to a solid place, that he will put a new song on all our lips.\xa0 We trust not just that Kevin is whole, but that one day we will be too: reunited with him, with one another, and with our Lord, forever.\xa0

But until that day: we sing and pray and live the paradox that we\u2019ve been given.\xa0 Lives of both tears and laughter.\xa0 Prayers of intersession and thanks.\xa0 Songs of sorrow, but also of hope.\xa0 \xa0\xa0

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