How can it be that our eyes can overflow with liquid emotion and our hearts can ache with intense joy at the same time? How can it be that the journey between tears and joy is as short a time span as it takes to wipe away a tear and touch the place where your heart is overflowing with joyous emotion?
What do tears have to do with joy? During the moments of intense stirrings in our heart we may feel joy intermingled with tears as we can experience both overwhelming emotion and elation because of the deeply held connections in relationships or ib the convictions of faith or belief. Holding a newborn child or hearing expressions of love from someone who loves us which overflow with feeling and significance might bring tears and joy. Seeing something special or rare with our eyes can bring tears and joy intermingling with each other because of an incredible vibrant sunset in the physical world or a moment of compassion, reconciliation or forgiveness in the relational realm between estranged or distanced family members or friends.
Sometimes the joyous realities of the love of God and His ever-flowing grace towards us in our need for salvation and forgiveness can become overpowering to our senses and our emotions to elicit both tears and joy at the same moment.
At other times, tears flow from our deepest anguish when words falter and fail. They can seem to come from an endless source of heartbreak as they bathe our face as grief and sorrow pour forth. These tears ache with questions and broken-ness in endless waiting and joy cannot be seen or much less found. At times our tears come as think of our gracious and loving God and remember His grace as we travel through difficulty or repentance.
Jesus walks with us, throughout all of our days upon the earth gifting and granting us incredible experiences with Him. He celebrates with us in those joyous times and weeps with us in our deepest anguishes. In addition, He waits for us to join Him in eternity when “Death is swallowed up forever, and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces” (Isaiah 25:8). This is really too deep for us to really comprehend. It is beyond our human understanding to comprehend an eternity when our tears will be wiped away and our joy will be fulfilled in the presence of our Lord forever. Still, we get a tiny glimpse and small sense of those feelings in the blessings we have when we experience tears and joy at the same time.
And it will be said in that day:
“Behold, this is our God; We have waited for Him, and He will save us.
This is the Lord; We have waited for Him; We will be glad and rejoice in His salvation.” Isaiah 25:9
