SACRED TEARS

"You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in Your bottle. Are they not in Your record?" (Psalm 56:8)

In her book, “Strange Scriptures That Perplex the Western Mind” (Erdmans, 1940), Barbara M. Bowen provides some background on the image the psalmist may have been referring to. She describes the old custom of collecting the tears of a family and preserving the tears in bottles. When death or serious trouble has occurred, each member of the family brought his or her tear bottle and collected tears from all the persons present. These bottles were sacred to the family members because they represented all the sorrows of the family. Each person was buried with his or her tear bottle. Many of these have been found in ancient tombs

I had an experience recently that enriched this image of the psalmist for me. I was counseling with a young woman, Leigh Hobbson, who had recently lost one of the most important persons in her life -- a great-aunt who was almost like a mother to her. It was painful -- and she had done a lot of crying, which is cleansing and healing.

One morning, Leigh's six-year-old daughter, Katy, witnessing her mother's grief, painted her a picture and gave it, with some other love tokens, to her mom and said, "I want you to feel better."

That night when Leigh was tucking Katy into bed she thanked her and told her that her love gifts did make her feel better. Then she added, "But Katy, I want you to know that Mommy may cry a lot more, because I love Ola so much." "But Mommy," Katy said, "I'm afraid you'll turn into a tear." "Well," said Leigh, "If I turned into a tear, would you wipe me up?" "No," said Katy, "I would put you into my eye."

Wow! What perception and wisdom -- what a picture of love! The psalmist was praying that somehow God would take his tears, use them, make them God's own -- and, yes, even redeem them. 

-- Maxie Dunnam in “Living the Psalms”

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