“Don’t wipe my tears away,
I want to feel them on my face.”
Two-year-old Henry, fell and skinned his knee. He ran to his mother for comfort, but as she picked him up, he said, “Don’t wipe my tears away, I want to feel them on my face.” (credit—@emilystrangeness)
There is a certain wisdom in Henry’s words. Sometimes the best thing that we can do is to let ourselves feel our tears. When we let them flow, they have a way of cleansing and healing the hurt in our hearts. But if we stifle them, they turn sour and fill us with bitterness.
Perhaps this is why the psalmist says, “You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle.” (Psalm 56:8) Our tears are precious to God.
However, unrequited sorrow is just as deadly as stifled tears. The psalmist also says, “Hear my prayer, O Lord, and give ear to my cry; do not hold your peace at my tears. (Psalm 39: 12)” While a good cry can do a world of good, tears that go on for days and nights steal the light from our eyes and the life from our hearts.
Tears are meant to be temporary and so the last vision of the Bible is of a time of healing and restoration. “God will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.” (Revelation 21: 4)
Praying that you may know God’s comfort today and that you will hold tight to the hope of a tearless future.
Musings and Wonderment 