There have been some tears this week. The tears haven't been mine, and yet, seeing them fall on the faces of people I love, I suppose I do consider, in some simple way, that they belong to me too.
Paul, the apostle, encourages us to "rejoice with those who rejoice... to weep with those who weep."
I have been "wept with" in my life. This past handful of days, I've been "weeping with".
My mom... she put her mother in hospice a few weekends ago. The cancer, the dementia, its beyond what a woman of nana's years can bear, the fading is coming fast, and mom has no choice but to take the next step that shows itself to her on this path toward goodbye. She and I were hiking through some wetlands last weekend. I asked her a question about the "arrangements", that awkward word we reach for when we talk about a death, a body, an urn... she stopped, let herself feel the weight of it all, set her head on my shoulder just like a little girl, and cried, "I'm not ready for her to be gone."
My workmate... so smart, so diligent, so focused, so in control. She asked me if I had a minute to talk privately. We shut the door and I sat down across from her. She let me catch a glimpse of who she really is, tucked there inside the girl she lets me see. Crushed by the harsh-sounding words of another, she cried as she expressed genuine hurt, uncertainty...how can she spend so many hours in this workspace anymore if she is meant to avoid, to hide, to dread, to dodge?
My boss... a phone call, an impending loss of a friend, a fear racing through her mind. The tears pooled in her eyes as she dropped the supervisor protocol for a moment and worried out loud with me... had she said enough, had she done enough, did he know he was loved? And if he didn't, would it be too late to tell him?
My sister... sharing a cup of coffee, stealing a few minutes from a busy work week to just be sisters. She told me the words she was trying to put together in a card to mom, a card she knows is inadequate, a card she knows can't make anything better, yet a card she wants to send to say "I know I can't do a thing, but I'm here". Tears as she worked it out in my hearing that its been a long time since our family has suffered a loss, and the older we grow, the more loss will be part of our stories, part of what we talk about over these cups of coffee.
My friend... surprised to find each other at the same gathering neither of us really felt up to attending. I understood that her invitation to join her in the ladies room was an invitation to get away from the noise and enter into something else entirely. We sat on an embroidered bench away from the celebration, and she cried as she told me of a discovery, a deepening sense of loss, confusion, brokenness, distrust.
Rejoice with those who rejoice. Weep with those who weep.
David, the psalmist, writes a beautiful lyric in Psalm 56 ~ he pleads with God at a painful and fearful time in his life to "carry my tears in your bottle".
I've allowed the line between literal and symbolic to blend a bit in my own spiritual life. Does God really have a bottle where he stores my tears? I don't know. What I do believe is that He is my safe-keeper. My own heart has been exposed to enough of His heart to believe this about Him: He keeps safe for me all that escapes my own ability to protect, all that I can't possibly keep from breaking. My family, my trust, my confidence, my fragility, my heart. Every ache, every loss, every sorrow, every fear. This is where tears come from. And where they go once they've fallen? Somehow, into the loving hands of my Father, who captures and keeps them.
I can weep with my mom, my sister, my friends along this trail of tears, because I have been wept with.
And one day, what God has captured, what God has kept, He will transform, and we will be bathed and refreshed and renewed. And, oh, how we will rejoice.
