TEARS IN A BOTTLE

“Those who do not know how to weep with their whole heart don't know how to laugh either.”  ~Golda Meir

If you’ve never heard someone weep with their whole heart you’ve never been the one on duty when a precious little one year old falls and bonks her face into your table. And on your watch.

I allow my granddaughter to mess around in my recliner-side magazine bucket. (It’s a grandmotherly prerogative to allow one’s daughter’s child to do the messing around one didn’t allow the daughter to do!) Anyway, the bucket contained an especially enticing little red plastic notebook and Spencer crawled away with it – over toward the living room coffee table. She stood up on teetering little legs and proceeded to topple over. The resulting “thump” of the topple sounded worse than I guess it was as no mountainous lump erupted on her baby head. She did, however, have marks on her baby face where the now offensive notebook apparently smacked her soundly.

At first there was no sound. Then…and then…and then...wailing! Sobbing! And that was just Nana! Well, kinda. We were both crying, if the truth be known. Her tears were of the “oh, I bonked my face and I am surprised and it hurts” kind and mine were of the “oh, my baby girl bonked her face and now my heart hurts” kind. This drama was followed by the hiccupping, sucking air thing babies do after a face-plant or similar result of gravity, followed by the back patting, cooing and rock-a-by-ing that Nanas do to remedy the situation.

Spencer was left with a bit of a swollen lip and a couple red spots on her cheek, but I don’t think her beauty will be marred forever. I suspect that the incident is over and done with in her mind. But not in mine. I will remember her first real “owie” and the pain of those dripping tears. For a long time. They fell deep into my heart and imbedded themselves there. This baby girl is that important to me.

Which made me remember a Scripture about God remembering my tears. In Psalm 56:8 (NLT) the writer says to God, “You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.” Wow. Imagine that! I am—and you are - so important to Him, among the billions and billions of people alive now and the billions and billions and billions of those who have ever lived, that He collects our tears in bottles! He writes them down in a book! (The heavenly bottle factory and book binding businesses must be quite the booming industries up there!).

It’s so comforting to realize that God is aware of our sorrow and that it matters to Him. In Isaiah 38:5, God told the prophet to go to King Hezekiah and say, “I have heard your prayer. I have seen your tears.” And one day, God tells us, He Himself will just eliminate them: “For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” (Revelation 7:17, ESV).

How we long for that day! (And until then, you should know that, as a precaution, my coffee  table was moved to the bedroom!)