An Old Post - August 2012
I never thought I would be grateful for tears, and yet there they were – my eyelids brimming full. They surprised me and caught me off guard. I hadn’t expected to cry – at least not like that. Yet deep down I knew that my heart needed to cry. Pain, long buried, was aching to be released and grief was ready to be poured out. It was finally real again, not just a numb recalling of events, and I was grateful to feel connected even if it was painful.
But …what did I do? Did I let them fall? No. I choked them back. I was trying desperately to swallow the lump so I could talk; trying hard not to let the tears fall. The struggle was evident, but I couldn’t let myself cry. It was inconvenient; it was uncomfortable; and most of all – it would be too shameful, weak, and ugly to sob.
I was thankful the tears were there, but I thought I would hold them back – save them for later. I ached for the release a good heart rain would bring, but I wanted it at my convenience; I wanted to cry in private. Sobs are not pretty, and I did not want to embarrass myself, so I choked them back. But tears are also a gift and when at last I stepped into a hot tub in the privacy of my own home, ready to have a good cry, the tears were not there – just a hollow emptiness once more.
The Story of our Tears
Our tears tell a lot about us. Ken Gire in his devotional journal, Reflections on Your Life, calls them the language of the soul and has this to say about tears, “Though more difficult to define, tears are more expressive than words. They are also more difficult to hide behind than words, for what we weep over reveals who we are. Our tears pull back the curtain to reveal the identity of our true self, which is often kept from other people like a self-conscious secret.” (Gire, 1998)
I think perhaps the tears that we don’t shed may also reveal the identity of our true self – perhaps they reveal just as much about us as those tears that tumble from our heart.
In his book, Ken Gire quotes Frederick Buechner who has this to say about tears, “Whenever you find tears in your eyes, especially unexpected tears, it is well to pay the closest attention. They are not only telling you something about the secret of who you are, but more often than not God is speaking to you through them of the mystery of where you have come from and is summoning you to where, if your soul is to be rescued, you should go next.” (Buechner, 1998)
Made to Weep
While we were made for Eden, we were also given the ability to cry; we were made to weep; we grieve. Created in the image of God we need only look to our creator for example. In fact, the shortest verse in the Bible is one which expresses the deepest of emotions, “Jesus wept.” And so, we weep, or at least we should. Women are often reputed to be emotional, but that is not always the case – at least not for me. I seldom cry – sometimes the tears just aren’t there. Sometimes the tears are locked away with past pain where I can’t reach it. However, I am grieved to realize that when I cannot connect to my own pain, I cannot connect to the pain of others. My heart may feel compassion, but I cannot truly grieve for them or with them.
We think of love as something that we cannot give if we don’t have. If we don’t allow our hearts to be filled with the deep love of God that is offered to us freely, we cannot share it. But love is not the only thing we have to share. I think that if we are stoic in our suffering and do not allow our hearts to feel broken, we cannot know what it is to be mended, and we have no hope of healing to offer to the hurting. We cannot shield our hearts, cap them, and lock them up tight, and then expect to be able to pour them out. While our tears may reveal our brokenness, I think our unshed tears may reveal our fears, and so it is not an empty cup that I take to the cross, but it is the dregs of fear and pride that I pour out so that my cup may be filled with compassion, hope, and tears.
Author"s Note:
Recently, as I was cleaning up some files, I came across this post I used in August of 2012. I remembered the post and I knew pieces of it came from a journal entry I had written a year earlier on August 7, 2011. On that day, the anniversary of Justin’s birthday, I had gone to the cemetery to take flowers and remember the little boy I lost so many years earlier. Later that day, talking to a friend, a great grief suddenly came over me for the loss I had experienced so many years ago. I had grieved when Justin died, and I had grieved when I brought my brain damaged little boy home, but both times, needing to move on with life, I had somehow buried my grief only to realize later that I could no longer connect with it. I think that day was the beginning of a final healing process that continued as I began to write Justin’s story six months later.
By August of 2012 I had finished the first draft of my book and was in the process of self-editing it when I wrote this blog post. By then, I had cried many tears as I wrote Justin’s story. It was probably the most healing thing I could have done, and, in the writing, I connected with my heart. My Journey with Justin is the story of my journey through grief.
But reading this post anew this week, I thought, “I could have written this last week!” Allowing myself to cry is still a struggle for me. I still stifle my tears and refuse to let them fall when it is inconvenient or embarrassing. Sometimes, I simply can’t allow myself to cry – I can’t get past the anxiety related to crying. But in this post, I find a younger version of myself speaking to my heart today and reminding me once more that tears are a gift.