Daily Archives: April 8, 2016

Through Our Tears

Put my tears into your bottle; are they not in your book?

Psalms 56:8-9

Women cry more than men. Scientists say it is good for us. Our ability to let our emotions out is probably one of the factors that account for women living so much longer than men.

God knows and understands our deep pain. Think of God’s pain when He allowed His only Son to die on the cross for our sins. He feels pain when we feel pain. He also offers us comfort for the pains of life. He wants  to carry us through the darkness into light. When we lose loved ones, when we stumble and fall, when we disappoint ourselves, we will cry. That’s a natural thing to do. But God wants to comfort us, forgive us, dry our tears, and carry us on. And  God has promised to wipe away all tears someday when we go to Heaven to live with Him.

In the world, we will have tribulation-that’s a promise. But we have a Savior, Christ, who has overcome the world. And there is a new day coming where we will never cry again.

Prayer:  Thank you Lord, for loving me so intimately and considering me so important that you even keep track of my tears.

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Give and Take

All of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility.

I Peter 5:5

Being married is a little like being on a teeter-totter. It’s no fun for one mate to be always up and the other down. No one can move if both partners insist on absolute equality. And if one partner jumps off, the other partner has no choice but to leave as well. In order to enjoy being on the teeter-totter, both partners must learn to give and take.

“You owe me and you’d better pay up.” John and Jennifer both used this phrase when they first came to therapy. Each seemed to carry a little scorebook in his or her head and to give themselves points for every “good deed.” They were constantly arguing about who had done more for the other. Their goal seemed to be to have complete equality and end up with the perfectly balanced teeter-totter. Instead, their teeter-totter was jolting up and down, with each of them being bumped as it hit the ground.

Can you imagine a couple so loving that they argue about how much they want to give to each other instead of how much they want to get from each other. As John and Jennifer’s marriage therapist, I was never able to persuade them to get that humble. But, after nine months of therapy, they had begun to develop a give and take marriage instead of the “take and take” marriage they had.

Thought: The more I give true love, the more likely I am to receive true love.