Good morning…
She expressed concerned over crying so much. So I wrote to her my thoughts about the gift of tears.
Grief is an unpredictable thing. “Crying so much lately” may feel like “going backward” instead of “making headway,” but I think tears are a sign of the Holy Spirit deeply at work. Tears tenderize us and express overwhelming emotions. Tears release penned up pain and give voice to unspeakable words. Tears accompany our gut-wrenching questions and melt the barrier between our inside self and our outside self. Tears also erase the thin veil between earth and heaven, joining this world and the next in a moist, meaningful way.
Tears hurt and heal. Exhaust and empower. Deplete and deepen. Tears put us in a different place within ourselves, carrying us into an inner chamber where God’s Spirit takes over, translating our groaning into a foreign-to-us language spoken fluently among the Father, Son, and Spirit. No tear is wasted. Each accomplishes its heaven-sent purpose.
The key is to cry with God.
To cry in solidarity with our loved ones.
To cry with honesty, integrity, and the hope of being healed whole, eventually.
And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don’t know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words. And the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God’s own will. And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them (Romans 8:26-28, NLT).
When God’s Holy Spirit moves us to tears we are given an indescribable gift.
…Sue…
