Tears

There was a time in my life when I hated to cry.  I resented each tear as if they had personally betrayed me by escaping and revealing my inner state of weakness to the outside world.  The transparent drops running down my face might as well have been windows into my hurting soul.  I don’t know which I feared more: others peering into this window of pain, or having to look in the mirror and recognize who I had become.

Three years ago, I was a very different person than I am today.  I was filled with hate.  Hate toward my family, hate toward my peers, hate toward my coach, and most passionately, hate toward myself.  I had let the wounds of life, many self-inflicted, shape me into a hard and sad person.  The last couple years of high school had affirmed to me that every relationship which I had invested in was a mistake and that trust was just another word for a broken heart.  I trained myself to not care.  I concluded that if I never made myself vulnerable, then nothing would affect me.  And if nothing affected me, nothing harmed me.  I remember the night a couple of friends and I sat in the theatre watching P.S. I Love You.  They were on either side of me bawling like babies, and I was hailed “cold-hearted” as I laughed through it.  It hit me a little at that point that I had changed.  I lied that this change was me becoming stronger as a woman.  In reality, I was a little girl, too afraid to face the root of her depression.

Something happened over the next few years, though.  It was a long process, but the walls came down.  I learned to forgive those who had hurt me; I learned to forgive myself.  I allowed Christ to heal my wounds, whether caused by my own rebellion or by those I held dearest to my heart.  And eventually, I learned to cry again. 

Now I cry when I’m overwhelmed.  I cry during sad movies- whether The Notebook or Toy Story 3.  I cry when I come before the Lord.  This month, I cried when I found out my aunt’s kidney was working for the first time in years.  Most recently, I cried as my mom and I apologized to each other after an argument.  No longer do I view tears as a sign of weakness.  Rather, I see tears as a sign of maturity.  Where I was once unable to make amends with the curveballs life threw me, I now face them with honesty.  I see tears as one of the many signature marks of a life filled with love.  Where I once refused to trust, I am now blessed to be close with many friends and family, despite the fact that we will inevitably let each other down.  I see tears as just part of my journey with the Lord.  Where I refused to move on with my life, my eyes now focus on a never-changing, always-moving Savior, whose grace restored my broken heart and whose love caused me to weep.