Our dog is recovering from her surgery (she just got spayed—nothing serious); so we skipped our usual morning walk through the cemetery. This gave me the welcome opportunity to pray Matins a little earlier. One of the psalms today is Psalm 56, which contains one of the verses that has captured my imagination since I was a small child:
You have noted my lamentation; put my tears into your bottle; *
are they not recorded in your book?— Psalm 56:8
My dad read Tolkein‘s The Fellowship of the Ring to me when I was in about 1st grade, and my I was absolutely enthralled by the elves of Lothlorien and the gifts that Galadriel gives to the Fellowship. So it’s probably unsurprising that as I read this psalm around the same time, I would imagine the psalmist’s bottled tears as the phial given to Frodo.
The phial of water from Galadriel’s fountain held the light of the star Eärendil. It ends up serving both Sam and Frodo in good stead as a source of protecting light during their journey into Mordor, warding off the darkness and death.
Tears have also been on my mind as I’ve prepared to preach this coming Sunday. The gradual psalm appointed for the day is Psalm 126, another one that has clung to me throughout the years.
Those who sowed with tears *
will reap with songs of joy— Psalm 126:6
The juxtaposition of these images—bottled tears, tears as seeds of joy, and light in the darkness—have me thinking about the transformative role our tears (and grief in general) can play. Many tears have been shed of late, whether literal tears or tears of the heart, and I’m tempted to think of them merely as reflections of the suffering we inflict on ourselves in our sin.
But this intersection is coaxing my spirit to consider the way God uses our tears. They’re not a futile outpouring. They do not fall into dry and barren soil. They fall into God’s hands. He catches them; he bottles them up. His Book of Life contains our whole selves—including our tears. Our sufferings in this world are not anonymous agonies we must bear through gritted teeth. God hears every groan of our heart and treasures every tear.
And those tears that he lovingly gathers bear fruit! We will reap with songs of joy! These seeds we sow will grow into sheaves that nourish us. These tears that God bottles up can, like Galadriel’s phial, shine forth like a light in the darkness.
This is not to say that the tears are any less painful or that the injustices that bring them forth are acceptable. But this small intersection reminds me today that we do not suffer alone or in vain.