We turn to denial as a natural reaction to survive trauma while it happens. Once the danger has passed, the repeated intrusion of painful memories causes us to turn to denial as a long-term coping strategy.
This denial blocks our route to healing.
In How praise can become denial, we introduced a new voice to Lamentations, that of the soldier; a strong young man who was likely a surviving member of Jerusalem's army. He tells of his torture while imprisoned after the fall of the city—what's shocking is that he doesn't blame the Babylonian enemy but God himself.
While the soldier's honesty regarding his trauma is refreshing, comparing his reaction to Daughter Zion's within the first two poems of Lamentations highlights his lack of emotion.
He first uses blame and then praise to keep his emotions at bay. A comment that he's "depressed" (v.20) is as close to an admittance of his emotional pain as we receive.
We're now going to look at his third and final coping strategy—that of theology—before seeing what ends up knocking him out of his denial.
