A Testimony of Tears

The following testimony in praise of tears is an excerpt from a chapter in my book, Rescued from Hell  which tells the story of my ten-year descent into a terrifying, insane delusion, and the Lord's work of restoring me to life and sanity (such as it is). One of the things He used with remarkable results was the gift of tears. The life-changing event recounted here happened while June was still at my side, but it prepared me for the time when I would need the help of tears in grieving the loss of her.

Grieving the Losses

I became aware of my spiritual anatomy through the recognition that grief was lodged in a very specific location in my physical body. Due to its location, I called it my soggy heart. Of course, I never spoke of this out loud I wasn't about to let anyone pry it open with words. I didn't even want God to touch it. So, I kept it sealed up, but always in the back of my mind, I was aware of a heaviness, a deep unanswered sorrow that radiated from a part of my heart which I knew to be filled with tears

Now that I was out of the delusion, the grief and guilt that I had shoved down years before were trying to resurface, seeking to be heard. My response? Not on your lifeI'm not listening! This became so engrafted that if my soggy heart ever began to surface during an unguarded moment, I would slam-dunk it by a practiced inward reflex

Tears must matter to Him because I can testify that the Lord seemed very determined to get me to open my soggy heart to His ministrations. It is comical in hindsight - He would touch me there, I would slam it down; He would touch me there, I would slam it down. Finally, I caught on. I realized He was after my secret stash of tears, so I decided to open up, take a chance, and get a conversation going.

Are you aware that we can refuse to speak to Him; refuse to listen? He loves us enough to let us shut down, but it is ill-advised. I said a bit testily, "What are You doing?" I want you to give Me those tears. "You don't understand. It's way too deep. If I start crying those tears, I will never come to the end of them." You don't understand. Tears are finite. My joy is infinite. Give me the tears so you can enter My joy. It was an offer I couldn't refuse.

I knew that I would never open this up around anyone else, but since I was already sitting in a comfortable chair and since there was no one at home at the time, I asked Him to help me get started by putting me in touch with the feelings. Wham! Suddenly, I could not stop crying. Great wracking sobs were streaming out of me. It was a torrent of pent-up tears.

While it was passing through me the only conscious connection, I could make to it was the general period of time I knew it involved. I prayed a bit in tongues, but mainly I just gave myself to the tears and imagined that Jesus was sitting opposite me, listening to my heart cry. He showed me that I could not cry when all of this happened to me because I would not allow myself to cry into an empty universe. Now everything was different He was here comforting me with His presence.

After about twenty or thirty minutes of this unrestrained flood, I told Him that was all I could do and that I needed to take a break for the day, but I would come back to it the next day whenever He would arrange the time. We did this together every day or so for a month. Towards the end of the month, with no abatement to the volume or violence of the tears, I asked Him if I was anywhere near the end of it. Soon. "Soon? It seems to me You used that same word to describe Your return and it's been almost two thousand years!" Soon.

Fortunately for me, soon came sooner rather than later. Much to my surprise, I cried the last tear. In the ensuing silence, I got up, went into the kitchen, and fixed a cup of tea. Then I took a good look inside my formerly soggy heart. It was entirely empty! There was no grief, no guilt, no heaviness left, only a quiet spring of joy bubbling gently up to the surface. Lord, You did it all without words or prayers! You did it with the tears! Take heart, dear reader. Give God your tears. Hold nothing back. There's joy on the other side of them.

Prayer

Jesus, if I have any inward reluctance to pray, if I have made any vows against crying, forgive me! Break the power of those wrong thoughts off of me and set me free to enter fully into the wonder of what tears can accomplish to relieve and restore a grieving heart. Thank you for the ministry of tears!