Here's My Heart's Bottle of Tears

Tears are a very interesting physical evidence of how deeply we are affected by life's "stuff".
Good stuff, bad stuff, happy stuff, sad stuff, any and all stuff, for us girls more easily, situations arise that can prompt tears. Sometimes the tears come and there may not even be a specific reason for them, they just show up!
I never used to be a crier, back in my youth when I was "stronger", forcing myself to refrain, not succumb to this display of weakness. What after all, would people think?! that I was just a sniveling helpless creature unworthy of any high calling, unequipped to take care of herself let alone anything important? I wouldn't allow myself an emotional indulgence that might cause anybody to judge me in the same harsh unrealistic way that I already judged myself!
I was afraid. Fear is a much bigger weakness!
Afraid to let the real me show for fear of rejection, or taunting, or ridicule, or non-acceptance, I didn't want anyone to not like me. It was easier to hide behind a facade of false perceptions. It still is sometimes!
The forced tears of girls with self motivated intentions too often do serve their calculated purposes. Unfortunately unsuspecting people who want to trust, especially the men in these women's lives, don't figure it out until it's too late, damage irreversible, or at least not without painful cost. Yet another reason in my mind to stifle my tears, I never wanted to be perceived or accused of being manipulative and deceptive, so if the need for tears overwhelmed me I would just leave the presence of witnesses. It was difficult, the "real" me is prone to wearing my heart out on my sleeve as they say!
Life lessons have taught that rejection is a given, I CAN'T please all the people all the time, just as all the people don't please me all the time! So what?! Some of the people will be pleased some of the time, just as I am pleased by some of the people some of the time.
Fear of facing the truths of genuineness, and the realities of life, is crippling! Especially when real life, meaningful life, full life, is what we all want most! So much time and energy wasted on the unimportant, in the folly of youth!
Now, since my youth has long been completed, I let it all hang out, not because it wasn't there before, but because it is much less important to me what any one else thinks about where I wear my heart, it's my sleeve! Now, I am a big blubbering baby! Now, I cry at commercials on t.v. as well as the full length features. Sometimes the tears that are prompted by something as frivolous as a t.v. commercial are pent up from completely unrelated issues, right at the surface ready to spill out at a moments notice, the t.v. commercial just notifies me! Now, my heart's full joy is as capable of instigating tears as the ones that flow out of sadness or sorrow.
It is as if emotions have turned me inside out, all of my innards are showing. The part that most people are never allowed to see. The part that is not what I would choose to have exposed. The naked truth of who I am, what makes me tick. That which comes up from the deepest, innermost places of my being, my soul.
The good, the bad and the ugly.
The second half of the 8th verse of the 56th chapter of psalms contains words that fall on my heart like honey to bees, nectar to butterflies, sweet sweet savory sustenance, desert for every meal!
The psalmist who is experienced in overwhelming emotions of fear, lonliness, and heartbreak writes: "Put my tears into Your bottle; Are they not in Your book?" Clearly he has learned by his experiences and has proven to himself that he can safely put every confidence in his God, who he fully believes because of his experience, knows him, and is concerned with all he cares about in this life. God sees each tear, records when and why each one falls, etched permanently on His Fatherly heart as surely as if the innermost part, could be contained in a bottle, or written about in a book! Not even tears divulge all of the secrets, only God truly sees those inner parts, the parts where the tears are birthed. And He captures those parts of us so none are lost or overlooked as unimportant. He protects the secrets they dare to expose, the secrets of the soul that can't even find words for expression. And it is written and recorded in this psalm whose words have been preserved through thousands of years so that I could read these same words and have this same confidence, to know I am cared for as a father his child.
A little further along in the same psalm I read "God is for me". Not against me like it sometimes feels,. When it seems no one is on my side, I am completely alone, that there is no one at all who could possibly relate to my experience, and that there is no way out of these circumstances, none, these words tell me it isn't so. I am NOT alone! And so it is "In God I have put my trust, I will not be afraid"...because that is the hope. The hope that there is someone who cares and understands, that there is a solution to everything, God is rooting "for me", He is hope, and hope offers me a future. How could anyone survive hopelessly?! More than just hope though, knowing He is "for me", gives me the confidence to move forward into the uncertainties of my future, as opposed to being paralyzed by the fear of it, I am assured that my future is not uncertain with Him, He is with me, and He is "for Me", no matter where it leads me! As a parent would console his child, my heavenly father is there to scoop me into His arms, take my face in His hands so that my eyes turn up to meet His, and there see how intensely His own heart breaks with mine, "for me". He quietly reassures me, soothing my aching heart, collecting my tears in His bottle so that nothing of me is lost or wasted. These tiny teardrops are the pieces of me that best reflect Him, His compassion, His own heart.
I have a little heart shaped bottle that once held Avon's "Here's My Heart" perfume, it now holds tiny Austrian crystals that I cut apart from a vintage necklace, to re-use the old beads in new ways. It is my attempt to create what I envision a bottle of my tears might look like to God, they are precious to Him, for they came up from deep inside of me, the me He created, representative of my pains, joys, fears and triumphs, and He cares about all that concerns me. So I see them as beautiful to Him, like rare jewels of great value and beauty.
Today I was reminded of these words as I witnessed the broken heart of a loved one. I took the bottle out of the cupboard it was in and placed it on the windowsill in the kitchen. The sun shines strong through that window in the afternoon making the "tears" sparkle, like treasures no longer buried.
It serves as a reminder to me that I am valuable, never forgotten. What I feel, God feels with me. Just as I ache for my children when they have needs, and as I thrill to their successes, He too as my Heavenly Father is affected by what breaks my heart, or makes my heart swell with joy.
No matter the reason, we never cry unnoticed or alone.
...Put my tears in Your bottle; Are they not in Your book?
P.J.