Permitted To Cry

 One day, I was scrolling through social media and I came across a photo of a flower covered in dew drops. While I've seen dozens of pictures like this in my life and even a few dew-laden flowers in personal experience, something about this image captured my attention. The little water droplets hanging ever so daintily on the delicate petals reminded me of tears I'd cried in past moments of my life and I realized something totally profound: the dew drops on that flower didn't take away from any of it's beauty; rather, they enhanced it. The flower was all the more attractive because of the droplets, not in spite of them. It's natural loveliness shown through even brighter as the sun slightly touched on it and made the drops sparkle. 

I was taken back to the darker chapters of my past and how, on so many occasions, I resonated with the psalmist-king David when he candidly lamented, "My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me all day long, 'Where is your God?'" (Psalm 42:3). It felt like the heaviness I carried in my soul twenty-four hours a day seeped out of me and surely took away from (or at the least, obscured) my inner beauty. The lie that somehow my grief and trauma made me less of a person, compounded by the fact that some seemed to avoid me like the plague because they didn't know how to talk to me in my pain, only further cemented this lie in my soul. 

But then, here is this photo trying to show me another way - a way paved with sorrow that still leads to everlasting life. A way laden with the evidence of a Savior "who Himself bore our sins in his body on the cross" so that by His very wounds we might receive healing (1 Peter 2:24). Even this Jesus cried. Think about it: he wept for the death of his friend Lazarus, even though He knew He would raise Him from the dead (John 11:33-35), He cried over the city of Jerusalem and those who refused to receive Him for who He was (Luke 19:41-44), and He wept in the Gethsemane-garden as the impending separation from His Father was beginning and He asked one last time if He could avoid what was before Him (Matthew 26:36-38). In all these situations, Jesus displayed human emotions and sent the clear message that we are permitted to cry. 

In our modern age, the false assumption has set in that such displays of deep feeling are weak and that it's not okay to express the agony of our tears so openly. Perhaps at things like funerals we give people a slight pass but overall, we try to avoid allowing our tears to flow and we apologize when another's tears flow and think we did something wrong to make them cry. We have this weird relationship with tears and it's something I didn't really understand why until I went through my own valleys and realized that tears come whether we ask them to or not. You cannot hold back the stream no matter how hard you dam it up because water will always find its own way. Emotions will, too. 

Scientists talk of how tears actually help us on a physical level: like the ocean, they are comprised of saltwater, and they help to lubricate and remove irritants from the eyes, thus protecting them, as well as reducing stress hormones and fighting pathogenic microbes. The three separate kinds of tears (reflex, continuous, and emotional) play a varied healing role in our bodies. We are built to have each of these types of "crying" kick in at various times to bring certain things to our physical and emotional selves that we are needing at that time. So to try to hold them back is actually to attempt to keep ourselves from something that our body is trying to do to help us! 

Returning back to that beautiful image of the dew-covered flower, I now see that tears bring out a special kind of beauty and seed a certain type of inner transformation that only those who have traveled a dark path truly know. Yes, those same tears may have been your "food day and night" just like David so long ago. Yes, they may come at unexpected times and in startling ways. Yes, it may be awkward or irritating on some level to let them flow, especially in the presence of others. But as both the Bible and science prove, it's not only okay to cry, it's necessary. And the tears you shed don't, for one second, take anything away from the beauty of your spirit. Rather, they enhance it. They let the world see your humanity - something the Savior Himself showed. 

So next time you find yourself needing a good cry... next time you feel embarrassed because the stream has started to flow... next time you want to apologize for unintentionally starting the tears in someone else... just remember that this is good. This is healthy! This is part of being naturally and authentically you. You were created this way. I was created this way. We need to stop pushing these feelings under and instead, let them express themselves. They have something to say. They want to do their job and wash something away. Give them permission to. 

After all, your own dewdrops add a mysterious sparkle as the Son touches your heart-petals and calls you to a beautiful life, even in the face of desperate pain.