Tears: A Blessing to be Appreciated or A Curse to Be Conquered?

“You need to get him breathing,” the doctor said as he handed my newborn son to the nurse. 

My pregnancy had been filled with fear and anxiety. The baby’s placenta had implanted too low on my uterine wall; therefore, labor would have caused it to detach and been fatal for both of us. Our son had just been delivered by a planned C-section three weeks early to avoid these fatal consequences. So when I heard the doctor say, “You need to get him breathing,” I feared the worst and became hysterical until I heard the dynamic sound of my son crying for the first time. 

There is nothing more miraculous than your baby’s first cry. It is a welcome sign of life at birth.  But somewhere between infancy and adulthood we lose our appreciation for tears.  There seems to be an unwritten code of societal norms that dictates when crying is acceptable and when it isn’t. These same norms seem to promote the belief that tears are a sign of weakness, immaturity or manipulation.  Some would go so far as to say crying in public is disgraceful and applaud those “strong enough” to suppress genuine tears.   

How did we go from tears being a sign of life to a sign of immaturity?  When did our tears revert from an acceptable form of communication to an unacceptable sign of weakness and shame? 

We read in Ecclesiastes 3:4a that “There is a time to cry and a time to laugh.” Certainly we expect babies to cry, and we accept tears at funerals when we are grieving and even weddings when we are celebrating. 

So are tears a blessing to be appreciated or a curse to be conquered?

 

The Bible is full of men and women who cried genuine tears to God. They represent a wide variety of circumstances and types of tears, yet they all had one thing in common – they all wept in the presence of God. They did not care about the approval of the people around them because their tears were a heart-to-heart communication with their creator on a level beyond mere words or worldly understanding. 

They are more than just an outlet for grief. They are a precious gift that communicates with God when we no longer have the words to articulate what’s in our heart. They provide us with a priceless opportunity to worship Him on a deeper level with our offerings of praise or gifts of thanksgiving. Likewise, our most fervent prayers of intercession, supplication or confession are often tears that flow from our heart to His.  

While the world may mock our tears, we can take refuge in the knowledge that God collects each one in a bottle and records them in His book. From our first cry to our last breath, He loves us THAT much.

 

Yes, let there be tears, my friend. Let there be tears!