Yesterday I Cried

Yesterday I cried, but the tears were few.  Rather it was a cry that came from deep within.  A cry that's hard to explain, easy to hide, and hard to stop.  It was a cry from my heart that started in my gut.  It was more emotional than tears can express.  It was a taste of anguish.

Growing up, I don't remember crying much.  I cried when I got yelled at or in trouble.  Mostly it was lip biting while desperately trying to hold back my tears. I cried when people died and when my dog S'more died.  Laughter rather than tears defined my childhood.  I was known for my laughter and occasional snorts.

One summer when I was about 14, I was standing at the mirror in the bathroom.  My eye hurt and I was trying to figure out what was wrong.  I noticed a small black dot on my bottom eyelid near the corner of my eye.  I thought something was in it, and I wanted to take care of it (I have always been a fixer).  After unsuccessfully trying to get it out with water, I went to my aunt to informed me that it was my tear duct. It was supposed to be there.  I was surprised to learn that there was a special part of the eye whose entire job was to secrete tears.  Tears was its specialty.

You know those random conversations that you aren't sure how you got in them. One night while talking with one of my friends who had studies anatomy and physiology, we got talking about crying.  (Now he had studied this, and I barely knew what he was talking about then, so explaining it now will be even more confusing). The jest of our conversation was that there is no biological connection for why emotional experiences would cause physical responses.  You see a cat killed and you start crying.  There is no reason why that would happen. (Remember I don't know if this is true or not, but this is what I remember from the conversation.)  That night  I realized that there was something unique and special about our emotional responses.  Something of God.

I've always been a pretty compassionate person, but most of my tears dealt or related to me.  How did I feel about this? How was I affected? I am the one sad about this.  For most people I think this is pretty common. As a woman who lived with lots of different women throughout my college career I experienced a lot of tears from myself and others through the stresses of course work, death, betrayal, loss, and pain.  My best friend and I often talk about "last time we had a good cry" and the build up of needing another one.  Crying is healing.  Crying releases something that's good for you. I have always felt better after a good cry.  I'm actually really good at crying quickly and quietly.  I just need to sometimes let it out.  Then I can move on with life.

"I don't know how to deal with my frustration," I said frustrated nearly two years ago.  I had just driven home on snow blown, ice covered roads,  barely a drip of gas in the tank, no way to get money, and after getting someone to help me out- I got my car stuck in a snow pile on our street. Fed up by my car, I traded with the father of the family I was living with to bathe his child covered with poop if he got my car out.  Happily he traded while I changed shirts and bathed the crap off this beautiful little boy.  I still had to figure my meetings for the day even though everyone was caught up by the snow.  I desperately wanted to cry, but I couldn't.  "Kick something" one of the guys I served with advised.  "Haha I don't know if I could do that."

At that time, it had been a few months since my crying "capabilities" had changed.  Something had changed inside of me. I cried but not for the normal things I used to cry over like my own frustrations and hurts. Rather I cried over the brokenness the surrounded me.  The brokenness of relationships, normalcy, love, families, jobs, sufferings, fights, pain, death- over the City of Detroit... even now as I write, I stop because I don't know how to move forward. I want to yell out "no, don't you see. Don't you see all their pain. Don't you see what's going on around you."  It's half cry but more of a yelling out.  A welling up from the inside out.  A rush of emotion that is so deep that it seems insurmountable.

The first time I remember encountering this wave of grief was a fall afternoon.  I had started my day with Mass which was the memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows, and afterwards prayed in the chapel.  During Mass the priest talked about how with great love comes great suffering.  Looking back in my journal, I recognized that I had received great love, and I questioned if that meant I also was going to encounter great suffering like Mary did.  Then I prayed a prayer I didn't want to pray because even though I knew I should, I didn't really want God to answer it. "Mary, I pray for your eyes to see your Son and his children as you do- with eyes filled with love and suffering. Then I pray for the hope and faith to rely completely upon the Lord."  (As a disclaimer, I was praying to God not Mary.  For the way in which my prayers were answered were by the Lord and His Holy Spirit.) 

And He answered that prayer almost immediately. For that day my eyes were opened to the City of Detroit in a new way.  While on the Sister Judy route delivering lunches to the homeless, she told me about the hardships of the prostitutes she worked with yet couldn't really help because of the lack of resources available for women in their circumstances.  Then she told me about the morgues filled with people who have died with no one to claim them for burial.  Maybe family members didn't know that they died or even worse maybe they did, but they didn't have the money for a proper burial.  Or maybe they were homeless and no one was there to care.  Or maybe there were people like Sister Judy who cared, but didn't have the means or qualifications needed to bury them.  Instead they sat in the morgue until it's too full then they are buried in the Potter's field.  Sister Judy would sometimes hold memorial services for the homeless people she knew who had died.  Different friends of there's would speak and then they would gather back at the church for pizza and fellowship- if they had the money.  My heart broke as she told me these stories.  My dad had always taught me the importance of burying the dead, and the Churches teaching on it.  I was horrified by how the morgue could be filled with all those bodies and how family members weren't able to properly grieve over their loss. 

Not that my heart wasn't heavy enough that afternoon, I sat with Josh Rock, the director of Youth Works, for nearly an hour talking about the Detroit public education system.  We talked about people graduating from high school without being able to read.  We talked about classes being filled with 40 plus students.  We talked about all the "dyslexic" students who really just needed a little one on one attention with reading.  We talked about a failing education system with little opportunity to get out.  I saw all my hopes and dreams as a future teacher flashing before my eyes.  Is this really what it's like? 

As I walked home from work that day, my mind my racing and my heart was grieved.  I talked with Priscilla on the front porch (some how uninterrupted by children) about the brokenness of the world, and how sometimes God gives us opportunities to see it through His eyes and to grieve over it.  We talked about one of the Brothers who God has really given the Lord's heart and how he has been graced with the ability to grieve and to love deeply. Even today, I still don't really understand it, but I continue to experience it.  Throughout my year in Detroit, my tears were less about me and more about others.  I experienced grief far beyond anything I ever imagined.  There were many of times in which I was just in agony over the situations that were before me, and all I could do was turn to God in prayer.  Often, I could barely pray.  Rather I would beg, worship, and cry some more.  I truly learned what it meant to "rely completely upon the Lord."

While in Detroit, I learned about a preacher named David Wilkerson.  Pastor Wilkerson was a small town preacher who was led by the Lord to New York City.  Many lives were transformed on the streets of New York through the power of God working in Wilkerson.  Over the last year or two, I have read his book The Cross and the Switchblade and listened to some of his sermons.  The Call to Anguish has stirred my heart in ways that only God can.  He says, "All true passion is born out of anguish."  Nehemiah from the Bible is called on by the God, and before he starts "the work of God" he is led to anguish and prayer.  A total surrender to God.  It is only then that he is able to be led by God to do not his own work, but the Lord's work.

Since coming to Belfast, I knew this "Baptism of anguish" needed to occur.  I also knew I didn't want it.  (Read former blog post called Love for further details.)  At the beginning of January while on staff retreat and focusing on Nehemiah, I thought "what would I do if I believed that God would take care of me?"  What would I do if I completely relied on God?  My mindset switched, and I realized how much I was holding back since moving to Belfast.  I wasn't really allowing God to work through me because I was afraid.  I wasn't really trying to settle here or learn to love Belfast.  Rather I was doing just enough to get by without giving my all and relying completely on God.  That day, I prayed for my heart to be expanded and to see God work miracles. 

A week and a half later I cried.  I cried because of the sufferieng some of the young people were facing.  I cried over the fatherlessness they experienced.  I cried over the flag protests and the divide this city has/ is going through.  I cried because the young people I had just spent two hours with were hurting, and I wanted them to know how loved they were.  I cried.

Little by little. Little by little.  That's how I have come to see God work in my life and in so many others lives.  Sometimes there are big changes, but usually it's the little things that make the difference.  Most of the time we don't even notice it, but little by little, little by little- it's occurring.  I continue to pray for the grace for God to expand my heart.  I pray that I can fall in love with the City of Belfast and it's people more than I could ever imagine.  I pray that my heart may break for the people here, and that I am given the opportunity to storm the gates of heaven.  I have no idea how long I will be in this city with these people, but I pray that the bricks I lay will be honoring to God and foundation for His people.  May He provide the strength, love, and grace I need each day to truly be His hands and feet.