Big Boys Do Cry

Big Boys Do Cry

Males are often taught to hide their emotions, and in some cultures, those who can’t keep a stiff-upper lip are considered weak, but God invites you to bring all your pain to Him for healing. He invites you to be open, vulnerable, and truthful about your wounds. He invites you to enter that closed-off part of yourself, the locked-away memories that you have so successfully suppressed. You no longer need to disassociate from the pain. What I love so much about Theophostic Prayer Ministry is that it invites God to lead us to truth by His light shining on those dark bleak places. -those valleys in the shadow of death where we would rather not go.The memory is the memory; it can’t hurt you. Let Him take away the sting of the lie that you have believed for so long.  The Truth really can set you free when you know Him/it (John 8:32).

We certainly rejoice in the physical healing that Y'shua's death purchased for us, but those same stripes purchased our emotional health as well, if we would but access it:

"But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed" (Isaiah 53:5).

When we are heartbroken, does our spirit not cry out to someone to listen, to “Record our lament; list our tears on your scroll" (NIV). Some individuals go through a period in their lives in which they attempt to "find themselves" or discover their ultimate purpose for being on earth. Isn’t it nice to know that God takes "account of our wanderings during those restless months and years? He puts our tears in His bottle. Every season is written all in His book?" (NASB).

During the difficult seasons of life, the birth and sometimes death of children, the aging of parents, illness and loss, He is there: "He keeps track of all our sorrows. He collects all our tears in your bottle. Innumerable though they seem, He has recorded each one in His book" (NLT).

In that one big bottle, God has been storing every tear, even those that Jesus wept for Lazarus (John 11:35), and that Mary wept for Jesus. All together.  Somehow He recognizes to whom each tear belongs and the precious and grievous story behind each one. What if all the tears together have to fill the bottle, and once it is filled, Jesus comes back?  When the bottle can take no more pain or grief or joy, will we see Him ?


The tears shed by the child being molested and those too tired to cry for water. The mother receiving corporal punishment from her abusive husband. The child locked away in the basement. The cancer patient undergoing chemotherapy. The father happy to see his daughter married to a man who esteems and loves her. Every tear a story.


God, ever the artist, writes down my poem of sadness, lists my tears on His scroll.
He makes a record of them. (NIRV)

No longer bottled up,

MJ