God Speaks to Us through the Tears.

Yesterday we reflected on tears. We’ll continue on that theme today.

The great American writer Frederick Buechner claimed that tears are essential guides. He once wrote, “Whenever you find tears in your eyes, it is well to pay the closest attention. They are not only telling you something about the secret of who you are, but more often than not, God is speaking to you through them of the mystery of where you have come from and is summoning you to where, if your soul is to be saved, you should go next.

In the book of Revelation, at the end of the Bible, there is a promise that one day, God will wipe every tear from our eyes, when mourning and crying and pain will be no more. Pastor Leonard Sweet wrote, “Until that day, it is our job, our joy, to wipe the eyes of those who weep, especially those who cannot wipe the tears away for themselves. And it is our job, our joy, to help those who are too hungry, too thirsty, too dehydrated for tears to form in their own eyes.”

May tears indeed be our guide. Whether they are our tears or others’ tears, may we listen intently to what God may be saying to us, and calling to us to next.

Let us pray: We remember, Gracious God, that Jesus taught us: Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted. Meet us in our tears. And meet us in the tears of others. Comfort us. Challenge us. And guide us. We ask in Christ’s name. Amen.