“I’m fine, my face is just crying”
This statement is definitely on my top 5 most used phrases.
I literally cry all the time now. You cry? I cry. Your feeling down? It’s cool, I’ll cry for you. I see a dog on the side of the road scrounging through the trash? Tears. I get over excited about something that I love a lot?? Weeping. You surprise me? You guessed it, sobs. I’m feeling so happy, so sad, so surprised, I’m feeling your feelings and I just start forming puddles in my eyes. Or ya know, I just cry.
But it’s such a funny thing to me because 93.2% of the time I’m genuinely okay. My soul is at ease, I’m a-okay, my face is just crying. It’s like my body is just needing so show people that I’m feeling deeply. I don’t know. It’s weird.
If you would’ve told me (or anyone in my family/ anyone that knew me well) a couple of years ago, shoot even just 1 year ago, that I would become a cryer I would’ve laughed in your face.
I grew up in a home infested with boys. Ugh, so much testosterone. Having 2 older brothers who were 14 months apart and 4 & 5 years older than me was a treat. Adding into the mix of incredible parents who created a home for anyone who needed it(mainly the 6 boys Forrest & Nate basically adopted into our family), I was surrounded by all the barks and lots of bite.
I would cry when I got my feelings hurt (which was always) or when something bad would happen and my brothers and their friends would tell me to suck it up, pick my head up, and keep on truckin. I think that’s why I really honed in on my unhealthy 7 tendencies of avoiding pain( enneagram reference, I’m obsessed, let’s talk about it). Anytime I would feel something remotely not fun or get my feelings hurt or be sad, I would shove it down and run. To anything. To everything. Or away from all things; Until I exploded. I used to be such an angry person that whenever I cried it was because I was so infuriated that I literally couldn’t do anything else but sit there and have silent beads of molten hot anger streaming down my face. It was almost comical until it wasn’t. I became so angry that it started to worry my family and friends. It scared people because they would never know how I would respond to something, even the smallest thing would just set me off.
Once I really started having a relationship with the Lord and getting involved in church, I was able to dig up those roots of anger and just hand them over. I literally was transformed (freaking praise hands, amirite?!) I started feeling emotions and really became a joyful person. Crazily enough the Lord gave me a very powerful gift through empathy. I became so empathetic that walking into a room without mentally preparing myself became overwhelming. Ministry was hard to do on really impactful nights because I could feel all the feels but I genuinely didn’t understand them. I knew they were there, but there was like this disconnect almost. I knew the emotions, shoot, at times I was basically suffocated with them. I could call each emotion by name but I couldnt feel them. Ya know?
Over the last year or so I’ve gotten closer to a certain friend back at home who is notorious for her tears *ahem, Emily Simpson,cough*
I don’t think she knows this, but I became genuinely fascinated by how easily she just felt things. She felt things so much the feelings had to start pouring out of her EYEBALLS. Totally joking, so serious.
Emily has this infectious way of just feeling it. She’s sad, she’s crying from the sorrow. She’s happy, she’s crying from the joy. Her feelings are hurt, her tears are signs of her pain. She thinks something is hilarious, she literally can’t stop crying long after the laughter has subsided.
I LOVE that about Emily. But I wanted that for myself. So I started praying. I thanked the Lord for allowing me to know other people’s feelings but I asked that He would soften my soul so I could actually feel them for myself and for others. I didn’t want appetizers for dinner, I wanted the dang steak with the fixings. I wanted to be able to sit with someone in their pain, I wanted to be able to sit in my own pain, I wanted to be able to have a soul that just got moved by people and their feelings.
The Lord is cool, because the more we get closer to Him the more our worldly desires transform into heavenly desires. So the desires of our hearts are actually desires from the Lord. I prayed and prayed for these feelings (heck I’m still praying for growth in that area) and He so desperately wants us to love each other well He couldn’t wait to teach me how to feel.
He brought people into my life who have helped me dig up roots that held me grounded in lies.
“Strong women don’t cry”, “tears are a sign of weakness”, “being sensitive means your weak”, “showing that your feelings are hurt or your upset about something makes you seem crazy”.
I could go on and on about sharing all the lies the enemy has so cleverly integrated into my life making me believe that being sensitive (which I SO am) means I’m less than.
I’m fine, but I need to cry. For you, for me, for the baby who’s dirty in the street in a random village in Africa, for the dog on the side of the road that doesn’t have a home to love it, for the girls who genuinely believe they are not worthy, for the guys who feel they’re inadequate. Feeling deeply, crying openly, in my new found opinion has made me stronger. Made me more fearless, made me brave. I no longer have to lash out in anger or shy away from being hurt. I can go through the pain of my own or of others and just feel freely and feel wholly.
Thanks Emily Simpson for being a doll and making me understand that crying isn’t a sign of weakness it’s a badge of strength in who we are and who the Lord has created us to be. I love you for 10,000 evers!!
Thanks Jesus for thinking it cool to allow me to be free to feel and be brave in doing so.
Xx M-
