It was a crazy cold morning in Golden, British Columbia. And my family was getting breakfast at a local diner on the way to our grandparents a few hours. It was just after Christmas; I couldn’t have been more than twelve years old that Canada visit.
We sat down at a booth, and all my attention was immediately drawn to a man across the way, a few booths down. I cannot tell you what it was. Maybe it was the forlorn expression. Maybe it was the way he slumped in his booth, defeated-like, a coffee mug in his hands. It was probably the deep sadness I remember in his eyes. He was this sojourner, but without any kind of purpose that sojourn requires. My excitement for a hot breakfast disappeared; it was replaced with a crippling sadness that I could not explain, and it was certainly nothing I was feeling in my life.
I started crying. Not sobbing, not huge, wet tears…the kind of crying where you don’t have the energy or hope to cry big. I really didn’t know what was going on. My parents didn’t know what was going on. But I can’t even call it compassion that I had for that man. I can only say that I felt in that moment what he must have been feeling. Done fighting.
I don’t know if what I experienced in that moment was the gift of travail, but I do know that crying is a gift. It’s not a gift like one is a naturally gifted athlete or a gifted student or a gifted musician. I think many times empathy has little do with getting to a place of wanting to fight for that person, and has much more with relinquishing the thought that you are sufficient to fight for them.
There have been several moments in the last few months when I realized crying is a gift. One morning this summer, I had one of the most “tangible” times in my life of God telling me He loved me, as a son. The tears that morning were tears of thankfulness, and even lack of comprehension for how that’s possible. There was a night at the beginning of our time in Guatemala when a sister shared a story of their past with the whole squad. The tears that night were of anger on her behalf, of entering into her suffering, of celebrating her freedom from that past. And, there was the sweet, sweet hour with Genevieve. Those were tears knowing God’s heart for her.
I keep asking God for more of His heart, for me, for others. I realize that it is often when He grants that gift—of knowing his heart—it is then that I cry. When I know the love of a Father.
