Dear Friends,
A while ago I was talking with a friend who shared a sad story of marital
heartbreak through intermittent tears. The person kept apologizing for his
emotions, but I assured him that I was very comfortable with his tears and
there was no need to feel embarrassed. In fact, mid-way through the
conversation, I even teared up. Yes, I confess that there have been many times
I have cried when praying for someone who was going through a difficult time.
After all, one who still cries while listening to a tearful classic country
song, is certainly not exempt from shedding a tear or two in the midst of
someone’s heart ache.
But I thought you are supposed to be objective; a professional
counselor might say, “How can you be objective if you allow yourself to
be drawn into your client’s emotions?” Now I only have a seminary degree, and I
didn’t major in counseling, but to that kind of counseling approach, I say,
"hogwash." If you can’t feel the pain of the people you are
counseling, I question your counseling efficacy. But that’s a story for another
time.
Long ago I filed the following quote from a Navigators’ Daily
Devotional: “Stoic insensitivity may be admired by the world, but the child of
God should be no stranger to tears of tender compassion. I believe a good
servant of God will have a heart that is soft and tender. He/she will often
pray that famous prayer, ‘Lord, let my heart be broken by the things that break
your heart.’”
I agree with the person who said, “Tears flow freely from the
fountain of a love-filled heart.”
When I did a word search, I discovered that tears were no stranger
to the pages of the Bible. In fact, I counted 32 verses where they are
mentioned in Young’s Analytical Concordance to the Bible.
Paul shed tears over lost people, and Jeremiah’s book,
Lamentations, is a tear stained diary of his efforts to reach lost people. Far
from being a sign of weakness, I believe tears can be a sign of strength. The
man or woman of God who is seeking to minister to broken hearts will do so with
tender tears of compassion.
It was my first year of ministry when I was called to the home of
a Roman Catholic family living only a few hundred yards from our church. His
son had just been struck by the blade of a power mower that had broken off when
it struck a rock. The blade had disengaged, instantly becoming a lethal weapon
as it hurdled through the air, striking his two-year-old son in the head. The
boy died instantly.
Fresh out of seminary, I confess I was not very well
prepared to handle this kind of experience. I was not sure what to
say when I met the father n his front lawn only a few minutes after they
had taken his son to the hospital morgue.
I don’t have any recall of what I said, but I do distinctly
remember reaching out and grabbing this dad and holding him to myself as
tightly as I could as together we silently tasted the salt in one
another’s tears. Weeks later when I was talking with him, he thanked me for the
impact I had made on him, a resident in the community, and yet a
total stranger to me. It wasn’t my words that impacted him, for I didn’t have
much of anything to say. What impacted him, however, were the tears I shed as I
held him there on the front lawn of his home.
Sometimes tears can be your greatest sermon. I will never forget
that incident which was one of the greatest learning experiences of my life. In
the words of country singer Alison Krauss, “Sometimes you say it best
when you say nothing at all.”
Don’t ever apologize for tears. Don’t ever become so hardened that
you cannot elicit emotion over someone else’s pain. Just remember the words of
Chuck Swindoll who wrote, “Sometimes tears are God’s way of clearing your
vision.” And in clearing my vision, God helped me to see His grace made perfect
even in the midst of my weakness.
Yours in faith and friendship,
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