The Crown of Tears

Sometimes I think my wellspring is made of saltwater. The past six weeks have made a fresh deposit as I’ve gone through Kleenex, red eyes, and cried off my mascara numerous times. Being told you have any kind of cancer, then being thrust into the hard left turn of life and focus that it demands is enough to make anyone shed a tear or two, or two thousand.

In a lifetime, how many tears are shed? We cannot count the number of times we’ve grieved, sobbed and wiped our eyes and snotty nose, let alone how many individual tears have welled up and spilled over like a relief valve opened up for our frayed and tender emotions.

Once again my watery soul has found solace in David’s writings. Upon being seized by the Philistines in Gath, the homeland of the infamous Goliath whom David had already finished off, David was full of lament. He had fought hard and won such victory. Now he was reduced and confined, and for what purpose?

Anyone familiar with David’s life knows “the rest of the story.” If David could have known what the future held, we would be the poorer for the Psalms that might never have been written. We no more, like David, can tell what life will yet bring, but one of the things David asked of the Lord – and so may we – was this…

“LORD, I am weary and mourning. Will you write this down, please? I don’t want to have to repeat myself. I’m running out of tissues and my hanky is soaked. I have cried more tears than I know what to do with, so would you capture every one of them and put them in your bottle? You seem to have a fondness for leaky eyes, so if tears are so special to you, how ‘bout you save them as record of this conversation? After all, it feels like my pen is full of tears instead of ink…” (definitely my paraphrase!).

Though I took some liberty with modernizing David’s prose, I have no doubt that the LORD saves for a very special purpose every single tear we have shed. It was about ten or twelve years ago that He gave me a vision about our tears. It was one of those instances when the sheers of heaven were slightly drawn back and I had an incredible glimpse of what scripture fulfilled looks like…

The women’s ministry of the local church we were attending back then was holding a mini retreat at the church. There came a time in the weekend’s ministry that all the women lined up in two equal rows facing each other. One at a time, each woman present made her way slowly through the passage formed. Those lined up as the priesthood of believers could pray and bless as Holy Spirit led for each one passing through.

As one particular woman, her trials and sorrow well-known by my husband and me in previous years, passed by me, I held her and prayed as only the Spirit could give utterance. She passed on down the row, tears streaming down her face. As she got to the end and turned around, I saw on her head the most brilliant, gorgeous crown studded with row upon row of sparkling diamonds. But they weren’t the diamonds we know and love. Every single diamond was one of her tears forming a custom tiara that was hers alone to wear. Each tear shimmered with life, representing a specific part of her story. The crown was out of this world.

When your tears come, I encourage you to let them fall freely knowing that in heaven there is a crown that only you will wear. Designer tears. What a comforting expectancy.

From the rising waters of my wellspring…

Gracefully Free

“You tellest (tally, record, inscribe, enumerate, recount and celebrate) my wanderings (waver, flee, disappear): put thou my tears into thy bottle (wineskin). Are they not in thy book (scroll, the art of writing or a document, evidence, letter, register)?”Psalm 56:8 KJV