Crying!

Suddenly felt like crying today. I don’t cry. No, really, I don’t. It’s not because I’m trying to be strong. I have that conversation a lot in the counselling room, counselling people who have lost a loved one, or who are themselves dying or waiting for a loved one to die. What does it mean to be strong? What does strong look like? I’m well versed in that. According to my mum, I didn’t cry when my dad died. I don’t remember that. I was too young. But I don’t cry. Truth be told, there have been many times when I’ve wanted to cry, times when I want to ball my eyes out. But it just doesn’t seem to happen. Today though, I felt like crying! It just got to me I guess, this mess. Suddenly I was overwhelmed with sorrow. Sorrow for me, for you, for the NHS staff, for those who’ve lost loved ones, for those who’ve lost jobs, for those who are lonely, for those who are separated. There is so much to be sorrowful about. And today it got to me. Today I found it hard to think about everything that is going on. If I deal with “being strong” in the counselling room, then I deal more with loss. That’s the big one. And it’s a hard one. Dealing with loss is challenging. And today, maybe, it was my turn to feel the loss. So many things have been lost in this strange time. Maybe the sense of loss got to me today. As I stood there wanting to cry, another feeling came over me. Perhaps, I thought, in some small way, I have experienced something of what God feels when he looks down on the world. This is, after all, the world he created and the world he loves deeply. So, if I can feel like I want to cry, mostly out of selfishness, how much more would God feel that? I’m not going to pretend to know the answer to that, other than to say it’s what led to the Easter story. And to say that God weeps out of a broken heart for the people he created. It’s good to know though, there’s quite a difference between me and God (as if you didn’t already know). I choke back the tears and find a way to bury them. God reaches out in love to the world he loves.