I’m going to post earlier today since I was a slacker on Friday…it was my wedding anniversary, after all. But hey, I am fully aware of my uber important responsibilities as a blogger. 😉

Let’s talk about tears;  (I’m not a fan, by the way).  They have a purpose and a place; who can argue that?  But you must admit, most of us in the western world have mixed feelings and responses to tears- from infancy to elderly. I mean, think about it, the first sound most tiny humans make is a cry and it’s a wonderful, glorious sound to the vast majority of mothers everywhere, the sound of new life.  However, that same infant crying throughout the night 6 weeks later…not so glorious. Come on, am I right?  Who jumps out of bed at 4a.m., for the 3rd time since midnight, for the 10th night in a row, shouting, “What a glorious sound my child is making!”?  My point.

Children shed tears, sometimes over skinned knees, upon which Moms or Dads smother kisses and place band aids, or sometimes over blocks that were knocked down.  Tears are shed when kids argue with siblings, don’t get their way, or when big brother hits him or her too hard.  Parents often grow weary of the tears and tell children to ‘dry it up’ or, ‘get over it’ or ‘toughen up’.  One of my personal favorites, which my husband and I heard while growing up, was along the lines of, ‘ knock that off or I’ll give you something to cry about!’  Very comforting, I assure you.

OK, so enter adolescence when hormones are raging and it seems like everything disassembles into anger or tears or both. YIKES!  What happened to my child?!  Who sucked his/her brains out and replaced them with a monster’s brain?  Many of us, out of fear and confusion, may respond with the same rhetoric-get over yourself! Suck it up! Knock it off!

The teen years are slightly better…but only slightly.  Tears aren’t quite as prolific, thank the good Lord Almighty!  Unless the boyfriend breaks up or the BFF talks behind her back…Or…by then we have learned to cry those tears into the pillow rather than into someone’s shoulder.

You see, by the time I reached adulthood, I had learned well, for I was a good student, to knock it off  or dry it up and cry into my pillow…and then I just didn’t cry much, anymore.  I am positive that there are many, many like me because several of us were raised by the ‘Greatest Generation’, a very hardworking, yet completely stoic group of folks.  Mom was much younger…but she had her own issues.

ALL of that generational lesson is to explain that the tears thing leads to this: since the doctors took my estrogen away I have been a crying MESS.  Just because my type of breast cancer is 90% fed by estrogen, they told me I can’t take it anymore-BIG, HAIRY DEAL!!!

I. Am. A. Crazy. Woman! (If you don’t believe me, ask my poor, dear, patient, loving husband! ❤️)

I cry about my grandkids being gone.  A lot.  I cry about my daughter moving away.  I cry about my son possibly moving farther away and my youngest granddaughter growing up without really knowing us.  I cry about a friend who has to have surgery, again, for the same thing, in less than a year.  I cry about the sinful state of our nation.  There’s more, but I won’t bore you to tears. 

Here’s the deal- this tearfulness is very new and uncomfortable for me…Gary has been the cryer in our marriage, and I’m fine with that, (although at first, many decades ago, it embarrassed me).  And I know I am opening myself up for some spiritualized comments about how God is using all this to do thus and so, blah, blah, blah.  YES- HE IS!  But please don’t minimize the physical things my body is enduring:  I have an itchy rash on my chest; I have one pink, sensitive ta-ta and one white one, (sorry to embarrass the male population); I can’t make it through many days without a nap; and my emotions are all over the map. And you know what?  As crazy as it sounds, by God’s grace, I can manage all of it except the tears…it totally ruins my eye makeup!!!

For those who are growing impatient, I am about finished…last night the Lord brought to mind a precious Psalm to remind me that He is well aware of my struggle with the tears thing- and I clutched it and held it close to my heart.  Psalm 56:8

You number my wanderings; Put my tears in Your bottle; Are they not in Your book?

I wonder how many bottles God has lined up with my name on them?

Ecclesiastes 3:11 says, “He has made everything beautiful in its time.  Also, He has put eternity into man’s heart…yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”

I may never see the endgame for what God was doing with this period of my life, although I do find myself longing for eternity more often.

But wow, I bet those bottles are beautiful…