Tears

"Tears are the best evidence of our love." -Kara Tippetts

I am a crier.

I cry when I am happy.  I cry when I am angry.  I cry when I am sad.  Sometimes I cry at television commercials.

Until I had children, I don't think I had experienced true, deep-soul, weeping except for a few times (the loss of my beloved grandparents, my mother's cancer diagnosis).  Since then the words from John 11:35, "Jesus wept", have been written on my heart in an entirely new way.

Lately, it seems, we have been in a season of weeping.  Our family has been walking through the proverbial "valley of the shadow of death". My heart is shattered for the suffering I see in the faces and eyes of all of my children and my husband.

I used to believe that tears were a sign of weakness.  A character flaw that indicated an inability to manage difficult situations. But life has changed me.  I have been asked to face difficulties I never imagined were possible.

And I have wept.

And I know that Jesus has wept with me.

I know this because when my children hurt, I hurt. When my children weep, I weep. I may not do it right then, but later, when I am alone, in the quiet, I weep.

I have learned that tears are not evidence of a character flaw. They are not a sign of weakness. They are a sign of love.  They are a evidence that someone has been allowed into the most private, most vulnerable parts of our souls and we have been changed by that.

Tears can heal. Tears can help others heal. Tears connect us to those we love, they connect us to those that hurt.  Sometimes they connect to those who have hurt us, so that we can forgive and heal.  Sometimes the healing doesn't come in this life.

But this I know, healing will come and tears are almost always part of it.

Blessings,
Meri