“Why are you crying again? When is this crying going to stop?”

Having had words like that spoken to me before, I thought that I was at fault every time I cried. As a result, I disliked confronting my emotions because I felt the need to have it all together. I especially despised my tears.

I wonder how many of us still struggle with the idea of verbalising our emotions. Do we even see crying as a healthy way of expression?

Well, I do. There is a certain beauty in our tears that is worth thinking about. Indeed, that has also been food for thought for me ever since I came across this post about teardrops under the lens of a microscope. 

These reflections have led me to realise three things regarding emotions.

1. God created us to express our emotions (not suppress them!) 

The Bible features men and women who were full of tears: Jesus wept. King David cried all day long. Jeremiah is known as the “Weeping Prophet”.

The stories and accounts of people like these show us that God created mankind with the ability to express our emotions healthily. Our emotions are not meant to be choked and silenced. 

That said, while we may express what we feel, we should be wise and careful never to let our emotions go out of hand and wreck our lives. 

So, when it comes to a healthy and godly way of processing emotions, one person we can learn from is King David. 

Known as a man after God’s heart, King David went through many difficult situations in life that surely surfaced many negative emotions within him.

Yet, David’s writings in the book of Psalms shows us that we can bring our authentic emotions to God.

God listens to our hearts’ deepest cries, and is faithful not to let us be overtaken by them. 

Here are some psalms that deal with specific feelings you may be facing:

• Psalm 6 (Grief)
• Psalm 22 (Loneliness and rejection)
• Psalm 32 (Guilt and shame)
• Psalm 42 (Depressed and downcast)
• Psalm 51 (Contrition) 
• Psalm 73 (Bitterness and envy) 
• Psalm 88 (Despair)

Let the psalm minister to you as you reflect on its words, and perceive what God is saying to you through it.

2. Our emotions are important to God

God’s Word tells us there is a time to weep, and a time to mourn (Ecclesiastes 3:4). God has set aside time for our emotions, even the messy ones, since all of them matter to Him. 

It makes me think of the song So You Would Come by Hillsong Worship: “Before the world begin, you were on His mind. And every tear you cry is precious in His eyes.” 

When I consider that every teardrop forms crystals of different patterns, I believe that no two tears look the same to God. 

The unique intricacy of each teardrop gives us some insight into the amount of attention God gives to us: He knows and is deeply interested in the story behind every tear. 

It is just like the Psalmist says, “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).

It always warms my heart to know that my tears hold such value to God. For Him to understand the emotions behind every drop of tears, even when we are not aware — it only emphasises how deeply known and loved we are by the Lord. 

3. Cry as you need to, but remember to hope

“God has made everything beautiful for its own time.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11)

We hardly associate tears with anything nice, but God can bring beauty out of our sorrow and pain.

In the Bible, we see many promises of God that what follows after tears and sorrow is joy:

• Jeremiah 31:13
• Psalm 30:5
• Psalm 126:5-6
• John 16:20
• Revelation 21:4

We can be confident that true joy can be found in Jesus because He loves and cares for us.

The next time you shed tears, think of our Creator God. Remember how precious each tear is to Him!

Not even our teardrops are out of His control. Truly, we serve a God who cares about our tears, emotions — indeed our whole lives!