Grief snuck up on us today when we were least expecting it. We witnessed joy expressed between a little girl and her Nana whom she hadn’t seen in a while and instantly the tears started to flow. I had often thought about the day when my son’s Nana would be at the bus stop. I imagined my son yelling “Nana” and running to her as fast as he could. Only today there was no Nana for my son waiting at the bus stop.
When I came home I unleashed the tears and allowed them to flow. It becomes frustrating as time keeps bringing you further from the day you last saw your loved one. You find yourself crying for the same reason again and again. I remember when I was grieving the loss of my mom and our own infertility that I grew tired of crying over the same thing day after long day.
But yet it’s in the tears that healing can start to happen. There’s a release that comes with the tears. Ann Voskmap states in her book, The Broken Way, “In tears is intimacy.” And tears often lead us to surrender. We surrender to the pain, the loss, the thing that is greater than us. And as we surrender, it gives God an open door to walk through and touch our hearts. Some of the sweetest moments in my life have come as a result of the toughest things I have had to walk through.
Today after I was crying for some time, my three year old daughter came to me and asked me why I was crying. And after I told her, she tenderly climbed into my lap and dried my tears with her blanket and then gave me a big hug. And in that moment I wondered if that was just a visual of what God does for us when we are in the midst of our deepest pain. He walks up to us in all His grace, gives us a hug and dries our tears with His grace that was purchased on the cross. He surrendered to His deepest pain so that we could have access to Him in all His glory when we are experiencing our deepest pain.
God in His sovereignty knew that life here on Earth would be difficult. He knew that we would need a bridge between His Holy self and us. He provided the bridge through a wooden cross stained with the blood of the One that took on our sin and shame so that we could have communion with our Creator. He knew that we would need tangible love and grace found in the Holy Spirit during our hardest moments.
During a church service a while ago, I sat behind a dad and his teenage daughter. During worship, they were both standing but the girl was leaning fully on her dad. Her body seemed almost limp as she leaned into her dad. And her dad put his arm around her and held her up as she stood. I got a sense that God was wanting to do that for me. That I had permission to lean fully on my Heavenly Father and depend on Him to even stand.
I wonder if you need permission today to lean fully on God and let Him hold you up today. I’m not sure what you are carrying or walking through today, but I know that God wants to go on your journey with you. He wants to hold you and carry you through. He loved us so much that He sent His son to die for us so that we could have continual access to His love and grace infinitely. I pray that you can lean fully in to the One that fully loves you.