Last weekend I attended a women’s conference for women in ministry.  We took a personality style test that revealed how others perceive you.  After twenty-eight questions, I came away with the title of “The Victor” which as I already know fits this type-A, reformed control freak and perfectionist to a tee.

The problem started when I got home.  Don’t most problems start there?

Life was just as I had left it.  Chaotic—filled with a sick golden retriever, a water-damaged bathroom, a special- needs daughter struggling at school, a church filled with people (my favorite people, of course) who have questions or needs, a dirty house—and too many other things to list.

All of them good, all of them loved (except the bathroom), and all of them needing something from me.

When I had returned home, I did so with quite a big head.  I was “The Victor” after all.  I come in and rush to the rescue.

So what was the problem?

A few days ago, the tears started at strange intervals and over strange situations throughout the day and they haven’t stopped since.

It might be hormones, it might be pressure, or it might simply be exhaustion.  I don’t really know, but more importantly, I wanted to know how to make it stop.

Crying is inconvenient, feels weak, and terrible for a girl who likes to wear mascara.

In the midst of this, I had a conversation with a friend and as soon as she started talking, her tears began to flow, too.  She apologized for her tears.  The words that came out of my mouth were:

“It’s okay to cry.  It means you care.”

Great words from the mouth of a woman who is so intolerant of her own tears.  I’ve thought about it long and hard ever since.

Why do we women apologize for our tears? Why do we believe tears make us weak?

I rarely have heard a man do the same on the occasion that he cries.

Are we sorry that we feel?   Are we ashamed of our soft and caring hearts?  When I think of the alternative, I shudder at the thought.  This is a woman I don’t want to be; and those are women I don’t want to be around.

Yesterday I wept because my heart hurt for my daughter as she struggles with things that other kids take for granted.  She struggles to learn, to remember, to put together ideas and thoughts.

I confess that I would give anything to make her world more normal and less hard.

And yesterday was hard.  I encouraged her and reminded her that God sent her to me so that I would always remember to stop and smell the roses in life.  She didn’t seem convinced.

After she dried her tears and I dried mine, we trudged off to the next obligation–a prayer meeting.  I must confess I didn’t feel much like praying; in fact, I felt less like talking to Jesus than just about anyone at that time.

Sometime during the evening in my weary, tear-filled state, I laid my head on the front of the church pew and suddenly felt someone rubbing my back.

This can be a creepy thing when you are at church, even for the pastor’s wife.  I lifted my head and looked over and there she was in all her ten-year old joy—rubbing my back.  She leaned down and whispered in my ear, “I’m stopping to smell the roses.”

Her words have haunted me ever since.

Maybe our tears are just that.

Maybe it’s about stopping and remembering that the earth was created for love and for caring, for living and not dying, for beginnings and never ending—and all of these involve tears, especially when most of it seems to be going wrong.

Psalm 56:8 says that God sees our tears as special,

“You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.”

We write down the things that are most important and that we never want to forget.  But why would He never want to forget my tears?

Jesus wept at the house of a friend who had died.  In the face of their grief and their pain, He joined them with His tears. Why would the God of the universe cry just minutes before He raised his friend from the dead?

Because He cares.

He looked around at those He loved and hurt for them, cried for them, and prayed that God would  look down and remember them.

And God did.

Maybe our tears are recorded because they are important.  They are the reminders to stop and smell the roses of this life; so we can remember to feel compassion and cry out to our Father for someone who is hurting or struggling; so we can remember that He made us to be in relationship with each other; and so our tears can remind us that the world is broken and people are broken, and we only want what God wants and that is for both to be whole once again.

So I’m no longer feeling sorry for my tears.  They are still flowing as decisions about family, a sick dog, and struggling children still pound at my heart.

Tears are the things that wash my soul clean.  Tears channel my love and compassion.  Tears are the things that remind me to stop and smell the roses even when the world has gone wrong and I must desperately cry out to Jesus to put it back together again.

And each tear is collected and remembered by Him.  They remind me of compassion, caring, and love.  And then I remember that this is indeed the kind of world I want to live in.   A world where people care enough to weep over pain and hurt.

For when I think of the alternative—I shudder at the thought.