By Joy Le Page Smith, MA, BCC

Have you ever had something take place that startled your psyche to the point you could not stand to give it space? So you just kept as busy as possible . . . pushing yourself to stay on task, trying to avoid a reality that is staring you in the face?

For some it may simply be the news and knowing that far too often children are being shot when all they did is go to school for another day of learning.

The other morning I sat for my usual “first thing of the day”—prayer and Scripture reading . . . yet, once still and quiet some innermost feelings edged forward.

Knowing tears were coming—and that I didn’t want them—these words flew from pen to paper, “Why should I cry when there is so much to be thankful for?”

There are times when tears help us keep our balance if allowed at points within the journey. Life has great joys, yet sorrows also come that find us wondering, “How can I deal with this?”

Take the happenstance of a couple, married for decades now sensing an oneness and a love that’s deep and wondrous. Then cancer takes center stage. They do all possible to fight it medically . . . steadily trusting it cannot take power over them.

So, as much as their desire is to hold steady in gratitude for enjoying many years in a happy marriage, reckoning with cancer’s challenges changes things. Life seems most tenuous and there is an aching of heart now that comes and goes.

Often tears are fought and felt like enemies as it seems they hold power to take a person down. Refusing our tears may seem safer, yet the fact remains: allowing them to flow can be a true gift, helping us to get a handle on what feels unendurable.

What authors William H. Frey II, Ph.D. and Muriel Langseth, write in Crying: The Mystery of Tears makes clear that suppressing tears over long periods of time can reduce our ability to release stress and therefore increase our risk of stress-related disorders, which include high blood pressure, heart problems, certain ulcers, and perhaps even memory loss.

There are plenty of medical assurances that keep showing that our bodies loosen up and are helped when we allow tears. So allowing the tears helps make it possible to reckon with what is beneath our sadness, confusion, fear or anxiety. This honesty can bring a certain joy of its own. We are honoring ourselves . . . cutting ground for growing . . . by determining to be okay with a little “heart melt” from time to time.

We give ourselves empowerment when we honor what is at the depths of our hearts. This can be a definite factor toward staying healthy this side of the grave.  We are human after all; made of clay, not steel.

Actually, The shortest verse in the Bible, John 11:35, shows, “Jesus wept.”

About the author: Joy Le Page Smith is a Board certified clinical chaplain. Her articles and blogs are read in 32 countries. Joy’s four books are available on her home page at Healing-with-Joy.com where readers can view her children’s book titled, The Little Mountain Goat Who Was Afraid of High Places.