Tears Of Healing
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We don’t like tears. We don’t like people to see us cry – we may think of it as weakness – so we mask, we numb, we avoid.
Because we live in a broken world that hurts, we may cope with pain by becoming callous and hard. It’s difficult to damage a hard surface so we become hard to keep pain at a distance – whether we do this intentionally or subconsciously.
But what if God aches for us to release our tears and aid in softening the hardness of our hearts? What if tears are the first step in our healing?
And, take this in: what if healing means we’re soft (again)?
In the years after college, my relationship with Jesus really began to grow. It’s when I started to read the bible and pray differently than I had before. God used that time to begin to thaw out the ice I had allowed to develop over my heart.
I remember reading my Bible and coming across scenes in the Old Testament where God did a miraculous work through the Holy Spirit and it would bring tears to my eyes — something that had not happened for years. I had no idea why, but I was overwhelmed by God’s power and His majesty.
What I know now is that He was bringing feeling back to my numb heart. He was bringing emotion back to a person who had lost it.
Having our hearts become tender again is uncomfortable, at times awkward, but it is good. Why?
I believe our tears bring healing.
I believe our tears bring growth.
I believe our tears align our hearts with God’s.
Tears are also unwelcome because they are the result of pain. Tears come because we are wounded.
A physical wound must be treated or infection may set in. What about an emotional and spiritual wound?
Author and counselor, John Eldridge, says, “a wound that goes unacknowledged and unwept is a wound that cannot heal.”
We’ve all been wounded. Individually, as a family, and as a community. It’s ok to mourn for something that hurt you today. For your old wounds. For the hurts of others. For your unrealized dreams or hopes. Even the bittersweet things cause us tears. The start of something is the end of something else.
A friend recently showed me a book called Topography of Tears filled with photographs of the incredible patterns of salt crystals left behind after crying. I like to remind myself that our tears are precious to God.
Psalm 56:8 says, “You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.”
As the surface of our heart starts to soften God can plant something new in the tender ground. The ground is ready for seed and there is new potential for growth that wasn’t possible before. The ground had to be made soft, even tilled and plowed up (which is often painful) but because of this the scattered seed can now grow and flourish. What was once fallow has become fertile.
Ending and beginning, © Rose-Lynn Fisher, from The Topography of Tears; used courtesy of Rose-Lynn Fisher: rose-lynnfisher.com/tears.html
As we look at the brokenness through God’s eyes the tears we once ran from become the very thing God uses to make good fruits grow within us.
In Ephesians, Paul makes it clear that God has a wonderful plan for each of us. I’m convinced our tears are a critical part of living in the fullness God has for us. What if joy isn’t fully found in avoiding the heartbreaks but is instead found on the other side of the tears?
Tears are beautiful.
Tears are wonderful.
Tears are mysterious.
So, let’s stop trying so hard to avoid them.
Remember, Jesus Himself also wept:
· Jesus wept over the city of Jerusalem (Luke 19:41)
· Jesus wept when his friend Lazarus died (John 11:35)
· Jesus wept before He went to the Cross (Hebrews 5:7)
Jesus did not need to weep for the same reasons we do: He is God and knew all things, but in his humanity Jesus responded to brokenness, death, and anguish with tears. Maybe this is what we are meant to do, how we were made – created – to respond.
If we could sit down and have coffee with Jesus, he would probably try to get us to understand His heart for people. And when we have His heart we move in the same way He did. What if our tears are the way He gets our hearts to align with His?
“It’s A Heart Problem.”
Author and pastor, Jon Tyson, says the reason so few do what Jesus did is because so few feel what Jesus felt. He says our problem is not a confidence problem, it’s not a theology problem, its not a skill problem, it’s a heart problem. If we don’t feel like Jesus felt, if we refuse to allow our hearts to be pierced or broken, what will we miss?