“You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in Your bottle. You have recorded each one in Your book.”
Psalm 56:8 (NLT)
Whenever we go through suffering, our tears may seem to go unnoticed. We begin to feel alone with our pain. Or we may feel guilty for feeling so sorry for ourselves when we stop and consider how little we have suffered compared to others with heavier burdens and trials. For instance, when compared with the sufferings of saints of old as described by the apostle Paul in Hebrews, saints who were even sawed in half because of their stand for Christ, it makes our problems seem insignificant. But our problems, however small compared to others, are not small to God. We can take comfort in knowing that He is not blind to our pain. He sees each tear we cry and saves each and every one of them in a bottle!
The tears we cry matter so much to the Lord, in fact, it is as if He sees them as drops of dew on the leaves of a beautiful rose stem. While unnoticed in the hours before daybreak and in reality only water drops, dew is suddenly transformed into glistening diamonds, shining unashamedly with one glimpse of the morning sun. We cry our tears and in the midst of our pain become convinced that nobody cares or understands. The darkness consumes us and clouds our understanding. Our tears are like dull and meaningless drops of water. However, God sees them differently. When He looks upon our tears, He is able to see what’s veiled beneath the pain. He views each tear shed by one of His own, as sparkling glimpses of hearts that deep down love Him dearly. Though seen as cloudy drops of despair from our perspective, those tears from His vantage point are brilliant examples of our true love for Him. Each and every one of our tears shines all the way to heaven and grabs His full attention. And though we may never see their glisten or understand their meaning until we reach heaven, God beholds every tear and views them each as precious, brilliant examples of our love.
God does not enjoy watching us cry and though we may never know all the reasons for our pain, He does. In fact, our pain matters so much to Him that throughout eternity, our tears are not simply saved in a bottle, they are also kept by Him. It is really amazing to realize that He not only saves our tears in a bottle but also keeps records about them in a book. God catalogs them! He will remember the date we cried a certain tear. He will recall where we were when we cried. Most importantly, though, He will record the reason behind each tear. We may have cried one hundred tears in one sitting or we may have cried until the tears no longer fall, but He will remember them all.
One day, when we finally get to be with our Savior, He will be able to show us that tear bottle and that tear book which He has so diligently kept for each of us. However, He will have one final task regarding our tears. We are promised that when we get to heaven, He is going to permanently wipe away all of our tears. We will cry our very last one and the bottle containing our pain will be forever sealed. Since He has kept careful records, He will with love be able to reveal the real reasons behind every tear we cried. Tears that never for a moment went unnoticed by Him.
Photo taken by me in my backyard one sunny, summer morn.
Heavenly Raindrops 