If Jesus Wept, Then I Can Too

I was reading a note in my notes app called “wisdom” (really things over the last decade I heard and thought were smart). The one that made me stop was “If Jesus wept, then I can too”.

When I read that, I mentally replayed the times in life when I had raindrop tears of sadness and emptiness. No blame game, no anger, and no grief. Just sad. Just wept. Nowhere to run or hide or call or text, just cried. 

I don’t remember ever having those kinds of tears until I was in college. It was so instilled that ‘tears don’t fix anything’. Which is true. I have actually never seen physical tears actually fix anything in life or make problems go away. However, tears fix the heart. When I cried those raindrop tears, it was a great reminder that when you close your heart off, you lose all types of love. 

I have wasted a LOT of time and life because I refused to cry. I was a walking zombie, not thinking or feeling any emotions. I found it was really hard for me to be happy if I was never sad.

The term “happy” has a positive aroma when hearing/reading it, but more specifically, happy for me looks like looking forward to a special day or seeing a close friend. Happy was having hope for tomorrow, optimism, and goals I was excited to accomplish. But I learned that if I numb out the sadness, then I also numb out those happy moments, too. Looking back, I thought I was handling different situations so well. They weren’t looping thoughts and didn’t change my everyday life habits. In my mind, I had the assumption that these issues “never” bothered me.

That “tough guy” mindset was far from the truth. I was being eaten alive on the inside, but because I refused to feel emotions, I was hurt even more. The Bible says God rejoices, has compassion, and feels grief and a lot more emotions. When Jesus saw Mary weeping over Lazarus, He was deeply moved in spirit and troubled (John 11:33). When Mary and the Jews showed Jesus where Lazarus was laid, Jesus wept. The Jew said, “See how He loved him!” Jesus loved, and Jesus wept.

If Jesus wept, then I can (and should) too.