TEARS
My counselor taught me something invaluable last week. She said that there are 4 kinds of tears. There are angry tears, self-pity tears, painful tears, and sad tears. And here's the important part - the sad tears are the ones we cry when we are grieving. That's why some people get stuck in counseling for years and years and can't get past an issue, or some people say that they've cried 20 years over their child's death and they still can't function - its because they have cried other types of tears than sad tears and so they haven't been grieving. We have to cry the sad tears and grieve to have dealt with pain and be able to get past it so that we cannot be controlled by that situation anymore. I thought that was so good and so helpful! What I've been reading in a book relates to that also. I'm reading Dan Allender's To Be Told: know your story and shape your future. He talks about looking at your past story and using it to help know God more and to know and follow God's calling for your life. Here are some good quotes that may encourage you to read further: "No soul can hope to love the story infected with the stain of sin and streaks of sorrow unless the shame withers. And shame will not wither unless we choose to enter all of our stories- including the stories that bring heartache.... Jesus doesn’t take away anguish and anger; he transforms heartache to passion and anger to righteous defiance...To loose anguish is to be one step close to robotic inhumanity...To relinquish my hurt involves asking God not so much to take the pain away but to enter the sacred ground...in due season the pain will quiet and your heart will be invited to embrace all the stories of your life."(pp 170-189, Waterbrook Press, Colorado Springs, 2005)
posted by Ann Louise @ 11/24/2005 03:20:00 PM
2 Comments:
Painful tears are ones like to physical pain when we fall down, or emotional pain like the fact that it just hurts to be single sometimes. That's my best understanding of it. They are certainly not wrong tears. None of them are except thbere's probably a case for self pity tears being "wrong." But there's a place and a need for all of the other types of tears, its just the sad tears that complete grieving, while the others do not. I think its really interesting too! And helpful!
This is a very thought-provoking post for me. (Hi, by the way, I'm a close college friend of CEP). I was diagnosed with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis in 5th grade, and have really been dealing with that ever since, though I don't know what kind of tears mine have been. I think these days it's usually frustration and anger at not being able to do the simple, taking care of a toddler things like everybody else. Someone I met over the summer with the same diagnosis shared with me the usefulness of grieving. Still not sure if I've really done it.
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