“Those
who sow with tears
will reap with songs of joy.”
will reap with songs of joy.”
Have you ever gone through a season of
tears?
Where your heart cries out to God for
relief?
When you don’t see an end in sight, but you
know you have to keep going?
Have you ever felt like the verses you
usually refer to in hard times just aren’t enough and so you’re searching the
Scriptures for a nugget of hope to see you through?
As you may know, I’m a mom. And I can tell
you absolutely NOTHING in life has brought me more joy or more tears.
My kids are such a blessing. I cherish each
moment I have with them.
But being a mom brings with it a HUGE
responsibility.
Not only am I responsible for making sure
my kids are fed, clothed, healthy and learning their ABC”s, it falls on my
shoulders (and my husband’s) to train them up in the ways of God (Proverbs 22:6), and to discipline
them in love (Eph 6:4, Col 3:21, Proverbs 3:12) so that they
will one day be productive members of society and servants in the Body of
Christ (2 Tim 3:15, Deu 4:6).
Those are BIG responsibilities!
So many seeds to be sown into their little
lives.
Even realizing that God is helping me doesn’t
lessen some of my own tears.
Example:
Teaching my baby that I can’t walk with him
ALL night long so he can sleep brought many tears to both our eyes.
He began life with reflux issues…and so the
habit of walking with him for hours and hours formed.
Thank God, he is healed of the reflux issue…but
God didn’t erase his memory of the months of being held.
He still wanted to be held.
Weeks went by of my husband and me trying
to get him to sleep in his crib...it was torture.
I wondered why I was doing this to all of us. Maybe I didn’t really need
sleep? Maybe I could continue walking with him throughout the night…he’d
eventually outgrow it, right? (My sleep deprived mind actually thought those
were pretty good arguments)
As the MONTHS continued
my heart begged God for relief.
Daily I’d ask, “Why, Lord, why won’t my baby sleep?”
My old standby verse “My Grace is sufficient for you…” (2
Cor 12:9) did little to alleviate the pain. WHY WAS THIS HAPPENING? Other
babies slept through the night by now and mine slept worse than a newborn.
Sowing with tears.
That’s what I was doing.
His little tears and my big ones.
So as I continued to pat my screaming son’s
back as he lay in his crib I thought about the seeds I was sowing: independence
from me, learning to comfort himself, better sleep for everyone and a well
rested mommy so I could do all the other things a mommy needs to do on a daily
basis but with a song of joy in my heart instead of despair and blood shot
eyes.
Sometimes trials are long and hard, but we have to remember
the lessons of sowing.
Seeds sown are broken open in order to
grow.
Besides joy, it produces other wonderful
fruit (Gal
5:22-23)
And if you’re still having a hard time
finding hope in sowing in tears, let me remind you of the ultimate JOYOUS
TEARS…Jesus going to the cross—“…For
the JOY set before Him He endured the cross…” ( Heb
12:2, emphasis mine)