Collecting Tears

I am crying today.  I knew I would be and it’s Okay.  I expected to be sad today and I’m embracing it.  There are times when tears are shed out of agony and there are times, like today, when tears are anticipated. They feel cathartic and almost sacred.  Today they feel cathartic because they are a release of grief.  Today they are sacred because they are collected.  Today is the second anniversary of my Dad’s death. 

Psalms 56:8

You keep track of all my sorrows.

You have collected all my tears in your bottle.

You have recorded each one in your book.

Psalms 56:8 has always been a captivating scripture to me.  It is visually stunning, personal and intimate.  Here I am in tears and I am not alone. God is here tracking this sorrow.  He is taking this emotional history.  He’s recording it along with a whole lifetime of emotional history. He has it all there in that book of His. There are tears shed in His ledger I have forgotten about. He still remembers them. He knows all about them. He knows the entire picture of all my pain. I can trust Him completely with today’s tears.

Psalms 56:8 says that he is collecting my tears in HIS bottle.  God came prepared today.  He brought the storage vessel.  He is the most qualified and trusted collector of these tears.  This act of collecting tears in a bottle is associated with treasure to me.  My tears are being collected as precious and stored away.  None of these tears will fall to the ground as wasted grief.  They are being collected.  They are being remembered.  They matter.  They are held safely in gentle hands. Hands that understand and care about each salty droplet.

All of these tears will get recorded in His book.  I’m a data geek. Data analysis is what my former career was centered around.  So I can’t help but imagine a database of “Anita’s Sorrows” when I think of this book. My tears are little data points with events and dates referencing each one. There is an originating date, but then all the subsequent dates of each tear shed in remembrance of it.  Today is a remembrance date.  It is stored up in God’s book just as it is stored up in my memory.  Today is wrapped up in God’s love and compassion for me. 

My Dad had his own bottle of tears and his own record of sorrows, but as I ponder it now, I don’t think God needed to keep Dads’ bottle or ledger any longer.  Revelation 21:4 says “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain…”   I know the verse in Psalms is just a metaphor, but it’s nice to imagine my Dad in heaven getting back his bottle of tears and pouring it out on golden streets to watch all his salty sorrows evaporate.  I think he would have done that with a big shout of “Glory! Hallelujah!”

As today goes by and the cathartic, sacred tears fall, I will soak in the remembrance of my Dad. I will be forever grateful for my memories of him.  I will let God collect my tears and record each one, knowing they won’t be the last ones to leak out of this daughter’s eyes.  I love you Samuel James Blakely.