SpringCleaning! Tears in a Bottle March 27
SpringCleaning!
March 27, 2021
Tears in a Bottle
Psalm 56:8-9, ‘You’ve kept track of all my wandering and weeping. You’ve stored my many tears in Your bottle—not one will be lost. For they are recorded in Your book of remembrance. The very moment I call to You for a Father’s help, the tide of battle turns and my enemies flee. This one thing I know: God is on my side! (TPT).’
I couldn’t breathe, I hurt so badly. I felt like all the air in my lungs and the life in my body had been sucked out of me. Deflated, like a flat tire on a bike; punctured like a wound; ragged, like frayed edges where a hem gave way. My tears, like worn out suds, didn’t even have the energy to travel on my face; they clung to my skin, awaiting a different escape route. It cut inside my chest, the million pieces of my shattered heart. Lonely is the loudest noise on the planet.
I never thought, there was never an inkling, it never would have been imaginable to me. One day we were whole, and the next, this building block we had been working toward, lay like crumbled pieces in the dirt. I never thought this could happen. Like child’s play, the Lincoln Logs, lay in disarray around what might have been the homestead or the cabin we might have once inhabited as a family. Memories like open suitcases with costume jewelry and dress-up clothing spilled everywhere. My tears pooled. I always thought we would be solid. I never imagined they’d leave. I would need them, and they would need me, forever. Right?!
But my world had fallen apart, and along with it, those relationships. Every hope, every dream, all of it cluttered in the corner, collecting dust. I have been walking around the fray for so long now, it is almost like a piece of furniture sat there or an ottoman, taking up space in the corner of my soul. I side-stepped; I might have tripped if I hadn’t.
Luke 7:37-38, ‘In the neighborhood there was an immoral woman of the streets, known to all to be a prostitute. When she heard that Jesus was at Simeon’s house, she took an exquisite flask made from alabaster, filled it with the most expensive perfume, went right into the home of the Jewish religious leader, and in front of all the guests, she knelt at the feet of Jesus. Broken and weeping, she covered His feet with the tears that fell from her face. She kept crying and drying His feet with her long hair. Over and over, she kissed Jesus’ feet. Then, as an act of worship, she opened her flask and anointed His feet with her costly perfume (TPT).’
God is accustomed to our grief. He bottles it. He resolves it. He saves it so we can see how far we have come, from where He has brought us. My tears don’t surprise Him, nor do yours. As I SpringClean today I am intent on the emotions I don’t know quite where to place or how to think of them; the ones that have me feeling so very broken. He is the restorer of all things, the resolution for all the choices I made that crashed midstream, the Lifter of my head.
Come with me in March and let’s clean house!
If you are anything like me, you have kept some things around far too long and now they got to go! And with the Lord’s help, they can!
