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I was only 20 when my Mum died. I was in the middle of University away from home, and felt helpless. For months, years, I had been praying for her to get better, but one night in desperation I prayed for God’s will to be done and not mine, and that was the night she died. I felt a huge sense of guilt and anger, anger that I was responsible for her death. It wasn’t until I discovered the power of laments that I was able to come to terms with that anger.To help you to understand how laments are structured and to see how someone has used the lamenting psalm template, I wanted to share my lament with you. It rhymes (which they really don’t need to), and it’s not very good, but it is very real to me, and that’s all a lament should be.O Lord, constant companion,Who through the hearts and hands of othershas tended and cared for me,why did you allow me to believethat I had cast my mother free?All those nights I prayedthat she would be healed and come back soon,but that one night I prayed for her peaceis the night she slipped away to you.That guilt I carried I cannot explain,the belief I was to blame!My prayer had killed my mother,I was burdened with that shame.But in that pain I felt you nearand I understood what matters,that prayers are not so simpleand neither are their answers.I made you too small,I diminished your true glory,and in that I nearly missedthe final chapter of her story.Your love saved her from her suffering,as her love saved me from mine.And now I truly seewhat it means to be divine.Thank you Lord for the maturing of my heart,now I am thankful for our time togethernot the time we are apart.I have a richer understandingof what it meant to lose my Mum.It was not my childish desiresbut your greater will be doneChristoph Auckland is the Senior Outreach Officer for the Diocese of Llandaff