Tears that transform

Hollywood. The place for the beautiful people. Glittering lights, sparkling water, verdant gardens, even the tears are beautiful.

You know the ones I mean. The tears that well up, and stream gently down the cheeks of the one who weeps. Beautiful tears, silently shed, carefully caught in a linen handkerchief, quickly subsiding.

Where do the gut-wrenching sobs go when tears must be beautifully shed? Hollywood typically fades to black, lest the sobs overpower the musical score.

I was not yet 20, alone in a hospital room in a small town in Wyoming, my husband and infant son 190 miles away, at another hospital where they tended Ben, born weeks too soon. Having learned stoicism early in life, I sought to contain my emotions, but this battle was meant to be lost. Given medical clearance to shower, I stepped into the closet-sized space, turned the water on high and was surprised by a flood of tears. These were not the pretty tears that make the movie, these tears were hot, hotter than the water streaming out of the shower head, and it seemed there would be no stopping them. I hoped the noise of the shower covered the sobs that were wrenched from me, and was grateful in some small corner of my mind that the water sluiced away the mucus that always follows my tears. I do not cry beautifully. My eyes swell. My nose runs. And my breath comes in great, gasping sobs. Nothing beautiful about that.

A proud mother introduced me to her son this week. There's something about a young man in uniform that commands attention. Our meeting was brief and we were barely able to exchange the minimal pleasantries before he had to be on his way. It was his last day of leave before returning to Iraq, and he had a flight to catch. His tour of duty ends this summer.

As they left, his mom was fighting back her tears. And as I watched them walk away, my own eyes filled. My stoic nature, alive and well, kicked in, and I was able to continue through my day, but the tears wait. I've no doubt they'll come. Because I can't help but wonder why we live in a world where we are compelled to send our children into harm's way, potentially sacrificing the few to secure the liberties of the many.

The sting of the tears that welled, barely allowed to fall, had the taste of familiarity, as I recalled watching my eldest son walk away, returning to his duties with the U.S. Marine Corps in the '90s. He served during peace time, however, so there was little of the dread this mom surely felt, watching her son walk away.

There are other mothers whose stoicism barely contains their tears. One such mother was overcome when she watched her son walk away, into the custody of the correctional department of the state they live in. Bitter tears follow their course for her as well, and she no doubt wonders why we live in a world where our children become victim to addiction before they are even old enough to understand that there is danger there?

In another corner of the world, mothers remain both steadfast and stoic, at the bedside of their wounded children, limbs crushed by the devastating earthquake in Haiti. "Why?" they cry, "Why does the earth move, contort, change in such a way that brings such harm to my little one?" These mothers reserve their tears for the dark watches of the night, so the child will not see his mother's pain, lest it magnify his own.

Mothers and fathers the world wide weep. Wives and husbands, too. Widows and widowers, the abandoned spouse, the lonely daughter, all weep in the darkness that passes for light in our broken world.

We weep when we see innocence lost, knowing how fleeting it is, knowing how deep those wounds cut.

We weep each time the enemy of all men carries off another victim, whether by deceit or through temptation.

We weep at the gravesites of those who have shed this mortal coil before clothing themselves in the robes of righteousness Christ has provided for each man, robes that will last for eternity.

Tears. They are our reality in this reality.

The tears of a child are a heartache, but often can be quickly soothed with a kiss and a band-aid. But the tears of the wise are powerful and not easily staunched.

Because each tear carries within it the power to become a prayer.

Admittedly, it is easy to grow weary of the weeping. The temptation to harden our hearts against the constant onslaught of this broken world is strong. Sometimes, we just want to throw our hands up in bitter futility, and exclaim, "It is what it is and cannot be changed," and, drying our tears -- once and for all -- walk away.

Jeremiah, often referred to as the weeping prophet, so great was his distress over Israel's fate, recorded the Lord's cry in Jeremiah 8:22 "Is there no balm in Gilead?"

Is there no balm for our tears? Tears of deep mourning for the way things are, this broken world where every word is a wound, where each new dawn brings new pain, for the widowed, the childless, those cast aside. Is there no comfort?

Our tears are our comfort. The tears we allow to pool before us, unrestrained, are the tears that become our prayers. Prayers of protection. Prayers for healing. Prayers for reconciliation. Prayers for redemption. Prayers for mercy and prayers for justice to be served. All captured and poured out in the form of hot, salty --beautiful tears.

I have often heard that there will be no tears in heaven, but there must be some, for this promise is there, "... and he will wipe away every tear from their eyes..." in Revelation 21:4. This one Hollywood got right. There is no comfort equal to the comfort of the one with the linen handkerchief, gently wiping away the bitter tears that must fall. How great will be our comfort be when it is Father God wielding the linen, capturing those transforming tears.

"He will swallow up death for all time, And the Lord God will wipe tears away from all faces, and he will remove the reproach of his people from all the earth; For the Lord has spoken. And it will be said in that day, "Behold, this is our God for whom we have waited that he might save us. This is the Lord for whom we have waited; Let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation." Isaiah 25: 8, 9 (NAS)