Have You Ever Cried When You Were Alone?

The worst kind of pain is wasted pain so, in shattered moments, I’m at a crossroads.

Over the coming weeks and months, my next steps will determine whether the trauma has been wasted or stewarded. When this kairos moment presents itself, will I seize it?

The decision is mine. Will I immediately receive God’s care and eventually let both his healing and his refining run their course?

(I say “eventually” because, in the immediate aftermath of a broken experience, we need his presence not a prescription. The concussion from the blow first needs to subside. Standing in the midst of the wreckage, our need for God’s embrace trumps our need for his instruction. Prescription, advice, instruction will have their time later. And those moments mirror what we need from each other as well: loving care and presence now, instruction—if ever—later. Please make a note of that if you come alongside me in my pain.)

God urges us to heave our ache and anxiety on him. He really does care for us. Eventually, in that process of receiving his love, our hearts are softened, and as Peter puts it, “in due time” he lifts us up and refines us. 1

Have you ever cried when you were alone? (If you’re one of the tough guys, have you ever thought about crying when you were alone?)

No, you haven’t. Nor have I.

Because neither of us has ever been ultimately alone.

David, when he was fearing for his life, prayed and acknowledged the incredible reality that none of us cry alone. “You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book?” (Psalm 56:8, ESV).

It’s the reality I’m simultaneously grateful for and humbled by: the infinite king of the universe is also mindful of me. And he cares. Constantly.

This astounding reality about his largeness and smallness, that he is both God and Father, both transcendent and immanent, is the reality behind a statement of deep gratitude in the midst of brokenness. It’s from the sixteenth-century Heidelberg Catechism: “I trust him so much that I do not doubt he will provide whatever I need for body and soul, and he will turn to my good whatever adversity he sends me in this sad world. He is able to do this because he is almighty God; he desires to do this because he is a faithful Father.”2

My tears are significant, and not only to me. They matter to the almighty God of all creation and my faithful Father. One of the most jolting verses in all of Scripture contains only two words: “Jesus wept” (John 11:35). John and others who were there witnessed the humanity of his tears and then also the divinity of his power. Jesus was at the tomb of his friend Lazarus, about to raise him from the dead. Even while knowing he was about to reclaim his friend from physical death, one of the most visceral evidences that the world is fallen, Jesus still wept over the painful and broken interruption of his friend’s life. Fully human, he similarly enters into the pain of our lives—some small, some overwhelming—to, as fully God, both restore and care for us during the process of redemption.

We all learn—the impatient way—that God’s timetable is not ours. The gap between whatever painful interruption we’ve experienced and his redemption of it might not be as short as the time between Lazarus’s death and resurrection, but his care in the interim is the same.

When wine is aged, a primary objective is the softening of the bitter chemical compounds called tannins that are found in the skins, seeds, and stems of the grapes. The tannins, though bitter at first, are necessary for the structure and depth of the wine. When the aging has finished its work, the result is a beautiful refinement of that which was at first bitter.

When the psalmist referred to the vessel in which God collects our tears, the Hebrew word translated as “bottle” could just as appropriately be termed “wineskin.” 3 The text doesn’t mandate that we interpret the significance of the wineskin in this way, but Scripture’s teaching about our maturing certainly allows for it. Could it be that God has collected every one of my bitter tears in his wineskin? Could it be that he is letting them age and soften under his restorative and redemptive guidance so that, one day, I will enjoy the mysterious fruit of this brokenness that is further maturing me? Could it be that this softening and deepening from my tears isn’t yet finished, but he will continue to guide the process? James’s words regarding the trials we have to encounter ring relevant: “The testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything” (1:3-4).

I’m learning to grasp that God actually pays attention to my tears, but he also wants to redeem them. In the midst of broken experiences, I can be assured “that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28). (It’s important to note that, while this is a powerful truth, if I haven’t digested it beforehand, it’s difficult to do so in the midst of broken experiences. In that case it can come across almost as a catchall cliché. Instead, it’s best learned in times of relative calm before encountering a storm.)

It’s a powerful mast of reality to which I can lash myself in the midst of the storm: the broken experience I’m going through isn’t good in and of itself, but God will bring good from it. With Job, whose dreams were also shattered in a storm, I can exult, “But he knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold” (23:10).

Nothing will be left on the editing room floor of my journey. He’ll ultimately redeem it all, wrestling beauty from the ashes for my good and his glory.

1. 1 Peter 1:7, 5:6-7.

2. Heidelberg Catechism with Scripture Texts (Grand Rapids: CRC, 1989), Question 26.

3. Noted in the NIV’s footnote for Psalm 56:8.