Devotionals

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My tears have been my food

Sometimes bereavement can be hard to work out. Tears come at the most unusual times, and they don’t come when you think it natural. “What’s wrong with me?” you say. “I should be crying”. And then, it the midst of the numbness, you condemn yourself for being so uncaring as to not be able to cry.

My mother was dying for two years before she actually left us for Home. She was diagnosed with a brain tumour and went through the usual procedure of therapy, hope, helter-skelter emotions, waiting and finally dying. She was unable to cope with a family of five children and she was in and out of hospital; so it was deemed right that the family should be sent to various aunts and uncles until such times as she got better. My father was incapable of bringing up a small family and working full-time, visiting my mum during her hospitalization, and coping with her illness. So “my tears were my food” as the Psalmist said. Although living with my aunt and uncle, I felt displaced, worried and stressed out by the unknown future. (Looking back it’s possible to put a name to all these feelings but as a nine-year-old all I knew was I wasn’t enjoying life.)

As a child I had gone to Sunday School and children’s meetings where I knew God to be the all-powerful, all-seeing, all-knowing God. It was natural for me to think that He would save my mother from death. I remember praying the words of a song, “He’s able, He’s able, I know He’s able; I know my Lord is able to carry me through.” I changed the word “me” for “her”. I wept just before she died. The next morning my dad brought breakfast to us in bed – something that never happened - and told us that mum had gone. I expected myself to burst out crying but the tears wouldn’t come. They didn’t even come at the funeral. They have come over the years at intermittent stages and events.

As I think about that verse from Psalm 42v3 “My tears have been my food” I think there are two ways to understand it. We can see it as fasting or we can see it as feasting. In the first case we can understand the tears as being a substitute for the meal. Heartache and toothache both bring about a lack of appetite. Often a person in grief will need to be prompted to eat. If we take it to mean the latter however, we broaden into a new vista. Food brings sustenance, it strengthens us. The apostle Paul in his letter to the Romans says this: “We know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us.”
(Romans 5:3-5 NIV) So the end is more important than the beginning. The tears of despair end up in hope after passing through the dark tunnels of perseverance and character. At the time of our tears all we can see is the darkness spread out before us, but joy comes in the morning.

Let us not give up hope, nor give in to despair. Those who go out weeping will return will songs of joy. (Psalm 126v6) We sow in tears but we will reap the joy of hope. God has poured out His love into our hearts. He is not going to take that away from us. He is faithful. And He loves you, even through the tears.

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