I wrote an email to a friend today.
Back in the day I was encouraged to write letters. It was the time when there was this thing called penpals where you could befriend people from different countries by the power of the letter. I remember starting that. I remember not continuing it after long, because I just never got in the habit of the discipline. I like the thought, though, and I like the letters I receive.
With the advent of emails, things are meant to be better, but regular email correspondence was not easy either. Yet I still appreciate the time to write, and to read that which is written for me.
Hence the email to my friend.
As I reached the end of the email there were tears in my eyes. Not tears because someone was standing on my foot. Tears of thanksgiving, tears as an emotional expression of just how much that friend meant to me. It was a tough email to write, but it was one drenched in gratitude for my friend. That is why there were tears. It wasn’t a flood, bawling was not involved, but there were certainly tears.
I spoke to a colleague soon after about tears and crying. The colleague spoke about the healing power of tears, and it appeared to be a connection that tears were used in the context of sorrow. The colleague also spoke of the perspective on crying that saw it as a negative and a sign of weakness. That was for women as well as for men. As a result people tend to save tears for extreme situations and even then tend to cover over the tears as something inconvenient, annoying, a sign of awkwardness or something being deficient.
Thank God for tears, I say.
Thank God for a way of emotional expression that conveys so much and is so enriching to the human experience and says more than words possibly could. Some say tears is a language that God understands, but I am glad that God gives the interpretation for those sensitive to read it. It reminds me of the story of Hannah the mother of Samuel who like a number of women in scripture, happened to be barren, and was in a situation where that lack was a significant issue. So, like every good God-fearer, she takes it to the Lord in prayer, except that this kind of prayer involves heavy emotional expression that gets the priest confusing the situation for a drunken woman! When those tears are translated, not only is there understanding, there is a desire to see the woman’s prayers answered.
No one knows why Jesus wept. There is speculation and people’s reading into things what is suited for them, but there is no definitive explanation for why He wept when He did. But He did.
Whatever the reason, whether in sympathy, in celebration, in gratitude or in tragedy, tears should never be dismissed, minimised or ignored as a brilliant way of expression.
God bless the tears, may they continue to flow, until He wipes them all away when we are ever with Him in eternity.
For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
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