When in childhood and tears were in order, I would sometimes cry in front of my bedroom mirror. Okay, so that was a little weird. Maybe I wanted to see my eyes turn from brown to green—they do that when I cry; or maybe it was a good way to distract from the feelings of sadness or madness or frustration or grief. Crying has very personal characteristics. I have a friend who cries in every conversation; another who can weep and weep and keep right on talking; and a friend who buries her tears deep in her gut. Some people are in the habit of apologizing for their tears, as though tears are a sin or something. God’s eventual plan is to wipe away our tears, but I find comfort that in the meantime, God considers every tear worth saving. “You have collected all my tears in your bottle” (Psalm 56:8, New Living Translation). I like that this prayer speaks of one bottle, as though your tears and mine and the tears of a child in a brothel and a soldier in war and a barren woman at the time of her period and an immigrant separated from his little boy all mix together and are held by the God who weeps with anger at the tomb of a friend and cries with frustration over a precious city.
May the groans of the Holy Spirit carry your pain as God counts your tears.
