$10,000 Pyramid Clue
August 8, 2019
Imagine being a contestant on the revived classic TV gameshow, $10,000 Pyramid, and receiving these clues:
Weddings. Birthday parties. Bee stings. Goodbyes. Movies. Beauty. Music. Onions. Hunger.
What would you say the pyramid category is? If you said, “THINGS THAT MAKE PEOPLE CRY”, you would be a winner!
I was recently thinking about my own tears and the times when I am most likely to cry. I was thinking about this because as I spent some time in various airports this summer, whether during my own travel, or whether I was dropping friends and loved ones off at the airport, I realized that airport scenarios make me cry. A few weeks ago, I watched two parents say goodbye to their daughter at an airport in Switzerland. I did not know these people; I did not know why the daughter was going away or where she was going or for how long. But as I watched the hugs, the tears, the quivering lips…I felt my own tears roll down my face and my lips quiver as I witnessed this emotional farewell. And then when I escorted some dear friends to the airport after a lovely visit, I found myself fighting back the tears as I drove home not knowing when I would see them again. Clearly, “airport goodbyes” make me cry.
Hallmark cards, the movie “You’ve Got Mail” and the last scene of the original movie, “An Affair to Remember”, and Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto no.2 mov.2, give my tear ducts a good workout!
And the thought that God keeps our tears in a bottle, also makes me weep.
8 You have kept count of my tossings;
put
my tears in your bottle.
Are
they not in your book?
Psalm 56:8
David penned these words while he was a prisoner of war (the Philistines had captured David in Gath) and clearly he had reason to cry and be distressed. David poetically states his struggles (tossings) are recorded in God’s bottle and book. God may not have an actual vial where our tears are kept or a literal book where sorrows are recorded, but He nonetheless remembers all the things that happen in our lives, including the suffering endured for His sake.
I take comfort, as David did, that our tears are not useless. God takes notice of our distress, fear, grief, and even joy which motivates our tears. He knows each of His children intimately, and every tear we shed has meaning to Him. And in the end, God will share His joy with us when….
4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.
Revelation 21:4