Tears - Laura Duke

"...there's perfect freedom here to weep every unwept tear"

(Come Lift Up Your Sorrows - Michael Card)

This song speaks of how the presence of God is a Holy Place where we are free to lift up our sorrows to God and to make a sacrifice to Him of all our shame. When I heard these words, my head began to reel and spin with all of the biblical connotations of tears, shame and sacrifice.

The spirit led my mind to picture the woman who annointed the feet of Jesus with perfume, washed them with her tears and dried them with her hair (Luke 7:36-50). After reading the passage, picture that scene in your mind. The perfume was a very expensive perfume and represents a large sacrifice as well as being a very symbolic and prophetic act. But what about the tears? Tears represent deep feeling. How many tears would be needed to wash someone's dusty, dirty feet?

The woman must have been filled with deep, deep emotion. My mind pictures tears flowing freely in release of the pain of intense suffering. The picture is accompanied by the loud, throaty sobs of uncontrollable crying.

At the feet of Jesus. 

This woman sacrificed more than expensive perfume. She sacrificed her tears. She was vulnerable to the judgement of the onlookers saying 'Stop your crying, Jesus doesn't want to hear that! Calm down, leave him alone!'. She sacrificed her pain to Jesus. Perhaps the thing that was most personal, secret and precious to her. 

Children call each other 'cry babies'. Adults maybe told us to 'Stop that crying!' or 'come back when your ready to be calm'. We've all heard that sentiment of 'You brought it on yourself, don't come crying to me'.

We've learned that our pain isn't something to be shared. That others don't want to hear about it, or that if it's 'unreasonable', that it's invalid. The world hasn't been and may never be a safe place to cry our tears (although within the church, I believe it should be). But these story teaches that a safe place to cry our tears is at the feet of Jesus.

Jesus sees us. He knows our pain. He welcomes every part of us, even our uncontrolled, loud, ugly weeping. He welcomes us with our wet, bedraggled and tangled hair around our faces. To Jesus, our tears are as precious as expensive perfume. Maybe even more.

Psalm 56:8 - You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. 

And one day, "He will wipe away every tear from (our) eyes...." Revelation 21:4