Tears of Love

          My favorite commercials, videos, movies, etc. are those that move me to tears.  I have been told that I have been given by God the gift of tears because I cry very easily.  For years I considered it a curse, but now I accept the notion that my heart cannot contain all the love that God wants to pour into it, and it overflows through my tear-ducts.  Whenever I see the kindness of someone reaching out to help another person, especially if the other person seems weaker than they, I see the beauty of Christ's love and it overwhelms my heart.

          In our ministry to families, I would tell the story of the Hoyt family about a father who competes in marathons and triathalons while pushing his disabled son in a wheelchair.  After reading their story, I would show the video, www.teamhoyt.com.  It brought many of our retreatants to tears, and although I have seen this video countless times, I still cry.   As beautiful as that story is, it does not come close to how beautiful God's love is for us, his disabled adopted children.  The objective of my sharing the Hoyt's story with others is to teach that we are all disabled.  We cannot love like our Father loves.  Our Father loves us so much that He sent us His Son, to be lifted up on the cross, so that we can be free of sin and experience what it feels like to truly love.  Sacrificial love day after day is a tough race, and one that Jesus runs for us.  He takes us along so we will know the thrill of what it is like to love like He loves.  Sacrificing for those who are weak with Jesus will bring tears of love.

          Within family life, when one member has a bad attitude due to hormones, illness, lack of sleep, stress, lack of prayer or whatever, the other family members usually do not cut them any slack.  In fact, we usually respond to them in anger or making fun of them.  Our society teaches that it is survival of the fittest; only the strong survive.  Unless we can see the reason for their weakness, and judge it to be a viable reason, we do not go out of our way to help them or forgive them for their inabilities to be loving, cheerful, sober, motivated to work, honest, or whatever the weakness is, at this particular time of their life, or perhaps for their whole earthly life.

         
          All families are dysfunctional in one way or another and it is my feeling that it is because we took God out of the home.  Never mind that we have taken God out of the schools.   We took God out of the home and put Him only in church. There are lots of tears being shed within families, but they are not tears of love. We are not usually overwhelmed by the love we witness in our home.  Living the way of grace by always reaching out to help especially the weakest at any given moment, will bring tears of love. We cannot do this without God.  Living the way of only the strong survive and we must do it alone, will only bring tears.  We are all weak and we all need the help of God and one another.  It is one thing to look at a video to see great love and be moved to tears, and it is totally another matter to reach out to help another sinner and experience the thrill of loving like Jesus and cry tears of love.

"but he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.'  I will all the more gladly boast of my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.  For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities, for when I am weak, then I am strong."  (1 Corinthians 12:9-10)

"But God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)