Can’t Stop Crying

A precious friend of mine told me she hesitated to go to a certain place because she was afraid she would start crying and not be able to stop. I vividly remember telling a counselor the very same thing years ago. My counselor told me she had never heard of anyone who died from crying. In her own way, from a human perspective, she was encouraging me to let myself cry. But she left out the most important part. I could have cried forever, and it would not have been enough. Because it was not to the world around me I needed to pour out my tears in order to be healed, though there certainly was nothing wrong with crying in front of others as I would come to discover. It was to the Lord I needed to pour out my heart. For He is the Healer and Comforter I needed. He is the One into whose hands I needed to place my heart. He is the One into whose hands I needed to place my tears. He is the One into whose hands I needed to place my life.

But my counselor did not know the Lord, and neither did I. So we continued on with counseling for a long time afterward, and the tears I learned to unleash fell into the hands of the world. The world wrapped me up in bandages and Band-aids as best it knew how, and I stumbled along with my broken heart and broken life from one human pillar to another human post – searching, searching, desperate for anything or anyone that could help. Sometimes I wanted to die. Sometimes I wanted to survive. I bounced back and forth between wanting to die and wanting to survive. I could not even conceive of the possibility that I was created to live and to thrive.

I was raised by family who believed crying needed to be behind closed doors. I was criticized and judged for crying in front of others. When I finally began to allow myself to cry in front of other people, it was hard. I couldn’t fathom that they might feel compassion for me rather than condemnation. Some had mercy for me; some perhaps did not. Many tried to help. But in the grand scheme of things, as I’ve learned to shed my tears, I have found the greatest, and most vital, place of all to let fall the tears of my hurt, my pain, my sadness, my sorrow, my disappointment, my frustration, my anything at all.

I have learned to cry in the presence of the greatest Comforter of all. The God of all comfort. My God. My King. My Lord. And He has taught me that one day all the tears I have sown will bring a harvest of joy. I have yet to experience the future harvest, and cannot even fathom the joy that awaits in heaven, but I know all about the joy I am already experiencing right now. For since that day long ago when I was afraid to let out all the pain in tears, I have come to know my Savior. And now, no matter my circumstances, no matter my challenges, I experience the joy of knowing intimately the love of my Lord!

All these years later now, the most beautiful tears of all I cry are the ones I cry before my Lord. Because He loves me, because He saved me, because He forgives me, because He heals me day by day, because He teaches me how to live, but this is not all. Most of all, the beautiful tears I cry are because I finally know in this new heart He has give me that He is God. I cry because I love Him. I cry because we love one another. I cry because He took my broken life and made me new. He made me His own. Forever.

“Trust in him at all times; ye people, pour out your heart before him: God is a refuge for us. Selah.” Psalm 62:8 KJV

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