“I don’t cry anymore,” blurted out my 13 year-old grandson as we drove to football camp. “Why don’t you cry anymore,” I quizzed him? “I don’t know,” he said, “I just don’t.”
My immediate concern was that my young grandson had somehow begun to form a macho mindset that thinks men are never supposed to cry. I explained to him that crying is okay. I tried to help him understand that crying can be an emotionally healthy release and that it is a natural human response to distress. I put it in 13-year old lingo as I explained that God made us that way! I reminded him that scripture tells us that Jesus cried. Then I shared with him the shortest verse in the Bible, Jesus wept. John 11:35
As it turned out, his reasons for not crying were due to having heard the big boys say that as you get older, you don’t cry anymore. You just “suck it up.” As you can imagine, we had a discussion about that.
There was a time in my own life that I took great pride in the fact that I never cried. I didn’t want to be what some would consider a blubbering female. That represented weakness to me and I abhorred the thought of being labeled an overly emotional female. It was years later that I learned in order to be an emotionally healthy person is to occasionally allow those tears to flow. Many have concluded that when a person experiences loss and doesn’t grieve it, they will grieve at some point down the road. I’ve found that to be true.
The late Charles Spurgeon referred to a “Ministry of Tears” that he defined as “liquid prayer.” Scripture tells us that there are several kinds of tears:
Tears of joy (Genesis 33:4)
Tears of sorrow or suffering (II Kings 20:5)
Tears of repentance (Joel 2:12,13)
Tears of compassion (John 11:35)
Tears of desperation (Ester 4:1-3)
Tears of travail or giving birth (Isaiah 42:14, 66:8) I believe this refers to spiritual tears that result in a “bringing forth” in prayer as well as physical tears.
The apostle John assures us of a day that there will be no more tears (Revelation 21). On that day there will be a new heaven and a new earth and God will live among his people. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or pain. They will be gone forever. Until that day comes, we must remember that tears are a healthy part of life. They are nature’s emotional processing. I’m glad that my Heavenly Father cares about every detail of my life – including the number of tears that I shed.
You keep track of all my sorrows.
You have collected all my tears in your bottle.
Psalm 56:8