But we should never have to apologize for our tears.
When I cry, I feel so helpless. I can't control what's happening. All my inner walls have crumbled and my naked heart is on display for myself and others to see. There are a million reasons to cry but always the same result: naked vulnerability.
Yet, isn't it better to be nakedly vulnerable than to live protected in unyielding, untouched, unforgiving armor? Aren't tears also harbingers of healing? Can't tears be a sign of strength rather than a sign of weakness, a sign that love's precious roots grow deep into our being and that, for love's sake, we will suffer and endure?
Some people's lives are trails of tears. That doesn't mean they give up on life. Leanne Simpson is a member of one of the Canadian First Nations - the Indigenous peoples. She is a member of the Nishnaabeg nation, and a renowned writer and activist. Recently she published a collection of short stories, "Islands of DeColonial Love," which depict the lives of ordinary First Nations people - in cities, small towns, on reserves. All are trying to balance living loving, observant lives while struggling to survive being marginalized, and suffering the endless grief of injustice and racism.
Yet these are not hopelessly broken people. As one character says "Still, I am not tragic."
We are only tragic if we make ourselves into victims, using our suffering as an excuse to withdraw from life and responsibility.
Faith does not anesthetize us against feeling suffering or grief. Faith gives us the depth of heart to experience all the joy and pain of being a human being fully engaged with life. Faith walks us through the dark forest of grief till we get to the healing clearing on the other side.
Recently a dear friend told me about a woman in her congregation whose son had died. At the time of the funeral, she'd suddenly felt God very close to her, comforting her, and, this woman told my friend, from that moment forward, she hadn't cried.
"But tears are good for you," I said. Then, realizing that this was a faith issue, I added "Jesus cried. Jesus cried out of grief when Lazarus died. Jesus was both divine AND human."
My friend did a quiet double-take. This particular Scripture verse - "Jesus wept" - had never really impacted her before. How often, we forget that Jesus was like us in all ways but sin, and that included grieving wholeheartedly. He wept for love of Lazarus. He wept as he struggled in the Garden of Gethsemane with his knowledge of his impending death, his freely chosen destiny:
"In the days when he was in the flesh, he offered supplications with loud cries and tears to the one who was able to save him from death." (Hebrews 5:7.) Our fragile bodies cringe at the thought of suffering even as our trembling souls realize that suffering is unavoidable. Jesus' fragile flesh cringed from suffering and death.
Still, Jesus was not tragic. Any more than we are when we fall to our knees and scream and weep and then get up and lift our cross again. The depth of our tears is the depth of our love, the depth of our obedient commitment to being human, to numerous sacrifices for love. Jesus cried and wept, obedient to what it means to be fully human, fully alive. Then he chose to love us to his death, so that he and we would have eternal life.