Tuesday, March 18
Let the Tears Fall
“Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning. – Joel 2:12
It was one of those mornings where nothing was going right. I had driven to meet up with friends, but couldn’t find them in the massive crowds, so I turned around to head home. On the way, a text canceled plans for later that day. It was too much. I couldn’t hold it in anymore, so while driving toward Jefferson Highway and home, I let the tears fall. The wailing started shortly after. It was the kind of crying you do with your whole body; the rest of the way home, I’m sure I was quite the sight for the drivers beside me, but I didn’t care. The frustration and anxiety and overwhelm had been building all week until finally it had consumed me. I needed the release to make room for peace.
Crying is a biological response to overwhelm; it’s how our bodies deal with stress and grief. The act of crying soothes the soul and can, in fact, bond people together. Just as the physical tears clean the eyes, the act of releasing the emotions cleans the heart. I was so consumed by my own version of what the day, the week, my life was supposed to look like that I had allowed the spaces in my heart to fill with junk. On that Saturday in my car, it was only after I was emptied that I could feel God’s guiding hand for that day.
That’s what Joel’s message in chapter 2 reminds me of. The Israelites had turned from God (again) and he was urging them to clean out the space in their hearts for God to fill them up. The call to fast, to weep, to mourn is more than just a direction for them to feel bad about turning away. To truly weep for something is to let it overtake you, to give in to the emotions and release the control we think we have over things. Just like with me in my car, it was only after the Israelites cried it out that the Lord could move into those spaces. They had to first give up all of themselves — the physical needs in fasting, the emotional control with weeping, and the ideas that they knew what was best with mourning — in order to receive the blessings God had planned for His people.
God has blessings planned for you, too. Cry it out if you need to, so that your whole self is free to receive them.
Hannah Froehlich