Mar222026
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Show the Tears.

I grew up with four brothers, no sisters. I worked for my father in his construction company, no girls. I now belong to a religious congregation, all guys. In my personal journey with the boys, I learned one thing. Guys like to hide their tears. I learned this early on playing in Little League. I got hit square in the elbow with a pitch. I started to cry in front of the team. My brother raced over to me and insisted, “Don’t cry, rub it.” I replied, “Okay,” and I rubbed it.

My friend agreed. He worked with a guy named “Moose.” The reason they called him Moose. They called him Moose because he was big. He was big because he was the weightlifting champion at the Florida State Penitentiary. When hot tar from a roofing job splatters onto your skin, it burns with intense pain. No one on the crew ever cried because Moose was watching; they just rubbed.

For all the guys out there and anyone else, it is okay to show the tears to God. The reason is that God knows how to wipe them away.

It is interesting that no one asked Jesus to bring Lazarus back from the dead. Maybe they didn’t think he could do it. They did not ask, but they had tears instead, and Jesus saw the tears and knew how to wipe them away.

There was a funeral procession. A widow was on her way to bury her only son. The widow never asked Jesus to save her son. She had two words, but she had tears, and Jesus saw them.  He went over to her and told her not to weep. Yet, Jesus did not just tell her to do something. Rather, He also gave her a reason not to weep. He placed his hand on the dead boy, and the boy immediately sat up. The next line in the Bible always gives me pause: “the boy began to speak.” I always wondered what he said, “Where are you all taking me? Why is everyone looking at me like that? Why is everyone so happy? Why are all these people here? Hey, where are we going? What do you mean I have been dead?”

My mother said to me, “When I die, you’d better pray like crazy because I will not be able to ask for help. You need to ask for help on my behalf. I said, “Mom, I may not need any words, I will show God the tears. I said that because He knows how to wipe them away.”

When you are sad, you do not always need words. Show God the tears because he is watching.

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