An Excerpt Where do the tears land when they drop from your eyes, when they fall down your cheek? If they make it to your jaw? Do they pool against your collarbone? Or do they vanish beneath your chin? If they make their way to your chest, where does their free fall stop? Do they cross your heart and hope to die? Or do they fall, fall, fall until they hit the palm of our Heavenly Father? Until he places them gently into a glass bottle? Do they fall, fall, fall until they hit a concaved glass bottom, a jar filled with their watery friends? And when they hit that sacred spot, is that our peace? The one that surpasses all understanding? “You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.” Psalm 56:8 This verse was the launchpad for my book, and musings of where all our tears end up quickly became its foundation. After decades of hearing this verse nonchalantly quoted, one day it rang deep and wide and shocked me. I was astounded at what the psalmist implied about God’s character: he hears what others might plug their ears to. Not only that, he remembers, catalogs, each drop. God remembers our finiteness. He recalls our need for him. He chooses to listen to the devastating wails of his people because it would be contrary to his goodness and love to do otherwise. God does not treat our tears with contempt, but with compassion. He tends to our watery eyes like a beloved collection, tenderly caring for them, storing them, and remembering them and all that caused them. Remembering us. Saints, there is a cupboard in the Kingdom of God stacked with tear-filled vessels, mine and yours. He needs no book to keep their records, yet he keeps one anyway, and he is in no particular hurry to rid himself of their burden. “My tears not only demand God’s presence, but they compel his listening. I do not hear the words that flow from my eyes, but as God catches each one, I imagine they echo a verbal prayer within the confines of his bottle. My tears become prayers rattling around, resounding in glass acoustics and repeating themselves over and over and over—confirming that God will neither mishear nor forget. When tears are the only words I can muster, God takes them. Listens to them. Hears them. Because he cannot deny his Word, my tears ensure that he bends a listening ear as a flower bends beneath the weight of heavy blooms covered in morning dew, interpreting the words each droplet speaks. Tears tenderize our hearts, making them ready and able to bow before the Father and ask for what we need. Sometimes, our tears do all the talking. When tears are available, so is God. When weeping is inevitable, so is God’s listening”
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