A friend told me of the day her daddy died. She was 4 years old at the time, eating her chicken noodle soup, when she heard the devastating news. She sat over her bowl, tears sliding down her face, landing in her noodles. “Don’t cry”, she was told. “Don’t cry.”
That lunch happened almost seven decades ago, but her memory is as vivid as ever. Her mom didn’t return to church for years afterwards, until she felt sure she could control her emotions. Well, grieving does look different for everyone. I won’t judge that mom. But if you ask me, the 4 year old instinctively knew something right: crying into her soup was a fitting response to the sadness in her soul.
Why do we tell people not to cry? And why do we ourselves work so hard not to cry?
Of course, there is no one definitive answer, and even if there was, I would not be able to deliver it to you, especially on only two cups of coffee, but I’ll throw out my guesses: we feel helpless, as if we should be able to do something to make it all better. We see it as a sign of weakness – as if weakness is a state to be avoided – and we feel helpless to impart strength to the need. We may see it as a fundamental lack of trust in God.
But as Pam Thum sang,
Pam Thum. “Life is Hard (God is Good).” Feel the Healing, 1995.
Sometimes living takes the life out of you
And sometimes living is all you can do
Life is hard
The world is cold
You’re barely young and
then you’re old
But each falling tear is understood.
Life is hard. But God is good.
Fully one third of the psalms are laments, my pastor friend Gary told me. They are there for a reason. They help us express the pain in our souls. We need to be able to do that. The sadness, with its fear and loneliness and questioning, has to go somewhere. If we don’t give voice to it, if we don’t work it out, it festers inside. It eats us, it deadens us. It’s not as if the sorrow is our only response to hard times, but it is one response, and it needs its turn.
Though I never did cry easily, I find the tears come readily these days. They don’t last, but they do come, and when they do, it is helpful to acknowledge them and move on.
Yesterday, for example, I had a mini meltdown by the Maytags in Lowe’s, and that is not just because I hate to shop. The last time I’d been there, looking at sinks and appliances, nuts and bolts, I’d been there with Jack. We’d been talking over the pros and cons of what was there, and as usual, he knew everything about everything. That man was so smart. He knew that the fundamental inner workings of Big Pricey Brand A were identical to More Reasonable Brand B, made in the same place, just with different bells and whistles. This is valuable information for any consumer, and one reason we shopped well for years: he would be able to talk with salespeople without being snowed.
Now I was back, in a familiar place, but without his familiar face. Or his mind. And I found myself trying to care about cubit feet and energy savings ratings, and it all seemed so distant, so surreal. Jack’s in eternity! And I’m here looking at washing machines. How can this be?
I know when the time comes to plunk my money down, I have a small army of trusted, knowledgable friends who will gladly help me make a wise choice. But in the meantime, I grieve.
As the lady said, Life is hard, but God is good.
Then I went to Sam’s Club to order pictures from our son Stephen’s wedding last September. Oh, I laughed and cried my way through those as well. My sister-by-love had taken pictures that got to the heart and soul of that joyful day, pictures that showed details I would otherwise have missed, and I smiled through my tears to relive it all.
It struck me as I reviewed those photos, there was no earthly way we could have anticipated ten short weeks from that party we would once again gather, but for a very different celebration, that of Jack’s life. I felt grateful for the army of family and friends I have, with whom I can dance or sorrow. So I thought again, life is hard. But God is still good.
But wait! There’s more!
I cried lifting weights at the gym.
And I cried watching NCIS, not because it was a rerun, but because Jack was not going to come home from Tuesday bowling right as the case is getting solved to tell me how his night went.
Now, in between these sorrowing times, I had bright spots. My son called, I laughed at a friend’s stories, I got some interesting mail, and my amaryllis bulb opened further.
But still, when the tears wanted to speak of ‘…the REST of the story…’, I let them. They are a language of their own, and one of the means God’s given us to express ourselves and communicate with each other.
Whether we are 4 or 104, sometimes we need to cry, and I say, good. Let it rain.