Why Not Sad Worship Songs?

There have more than a few things that have made me sad in the last months.  Just two short months ago we moved our family from our home in Asia to a very strange, unknown place called "America."

We didn't think it would be strange, after all we have visited many times over the 9+ years we have been committed to our work in Asia.  But when we returned this time, realizing that we won't be returning to our home, sadness surrounded us.

Many of our best friends live in Asia.  When will we ever see them again?  Most memories our kids have of their short little lives were all left back there.  The places, the smells, the food and the fellowship was all left behind.  We learned how to live life there, and now we have to learn to live a new kind of life in a new kind of place that is very different that when we left it.

Combine all of that with the reality that returning back to America has been both confusing and disorienting and you might gain a glimpse of one of our uncomfortable feelings—sadness.

Of course we are thankful to be closer to friends and family that we haven't been able to be close to since living in Asia.  In fact, the reality of this feeling with the other further exposes the incredible paradox we are facing.

So today, sitting in church I had one question: Why can't we sing some sad songs sometimes? Throughout Psalms (many of which were put into songs) there are many that carry a different tune that the songs I heard today.  For example:

Why, O Yahweh, do you stand afar off,

and hide yourself in times of trouble? Psalm 10

It's not that life is always sad, but sometimes it is and it's the inherit reality of living in a fallen world. David sang about hard things, had the worship leader sing songs about hard things, and wrote many, many words about the depressing nature of certain things.  

Could it also be said that acknowledging the hardship of life in song increases the deep joy of all things?  When I pray and talk with God about the things that are making me sad it causes me to want even more deeply to end each prayer declaring his promises that He is God, He's sovereign, He's in control.  

I've heard many say that the cure to sadness is to think of all the good things you have ("turn that frown upside down").  This formula is hard to swallow though because it puts "sad" in the category of "bad" which can't be right.  Is it wrong to be sad?  Does God demand his children never suffer? Even just a glimpse at the last days of Jesus' life show that not to be the case.  He cried.  It's hard for me to claim the simplicity of his life in this way though because the expression of these kinds of emotions in men nowadays is often equated with weakness—not something we admire culturally in men.  Weakness feels like shame, which doesn't feel good.  So when we say, "Just think on the bright side" instead of plainly sitting in the ashes of certain realities, I think we are missing the mark.

When the sun shines bright and the days are pleasant, I see no immediate reason to seek after songs or poems that talk of sadness.  Nobody wants to seek after sadness.  Yet before it comes, it might be wise to prepare our minds with the truth that sad isn't bad and sometimes it would be nice to connect with those deep painful notes with a song or two.

If you know of any old or new Hymns that might sound like the Psalm above, would you share it?