God Sees Your Tears

Psalm 56:8 (NLT)
"You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle."

The movie opens with a woman in a white, flowy dress walking down a nude-sanded beach, with the melodic sounds of Kenny G playing in the background (don’t act like you weren’t listening to Kenny G during those breakups in the 80s and 90s!).

She notices something floating in the water from a distance. As she approaches, she discovers it’s a corked bottle, foggy and murky. As she rubs the ocean’s residue off the bottle, she sees a worn and tattered letter inside, the ink still visible but aged…

Can you see it?
Can you imagine finding a bottle on the beach?
Can you contain the wonder of what’s written in this letter?

What if the letter was not simply a letter?

What if it listed all the times you soaked your pillow at night…
or wiped the tears from your face before entering a meeting where you needed to show up “put together,” strong (whatever that is), and ready?

It’s a letter tracking your sorrows, your pain, your disappointments.

But it’s not just any bottle, it’s special.

The owner is divine, all-knowing, all-loving, and your number one fan and confidant.

This bottle is where God keeps all your sorrows. It is where He places your pain, captures it, and holds it in His hands.

Not for you to find or read the letter.
But locked up.
Stored up.

Not like the earthly treasures we attempt to collect in life, but stored up like treasures God keeps for us.

God sees our pain and our tears in this bottle. He does not ignore them or tell us to “toughen up.” He cares for our sorrows.

He created sorrow.

God created sorrow?

Yes.

He created us with every feeling and emotion wired into our minds. Our soul is the keeper of every emotion. And our God breathed into our soul, so He knows what’s inside.

Sorrow is there.
But joy is there also.

God is not afraid of our sorrow. It is nothing that He cannot transform.

Often, we attempt to “bottle up” or suppress our pain and sorrows. We try to hide that part of our hearts from the Creator.

But He already knows.

Today, instead of trying to store our sorrows in a bottle of our own making, what if we made a transfer?

Transfer our human, bottled-up sorrows into God’s hands.

Because God can store them as treasures.

And not just heavenly treasures…
but treasures you can experience today.

These treasures are the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace…

Let’s be the woman on the beach in the white dress - with maybe some Mary J. playing in the background this time 😊

Open the bottle of your sorrows, release them to God, and see what He can do with a surrendered heart.

God will turn your mourning into dancing.
Psalm 30:11–12

Prayer:

Father God,

Thank You for seeing every tear I’ve cried, even the ones no one else noticed.

Thank You for caring about the moments I tried to hold it together, be strong, steady, fearless, while I was so desperately afraid…
and the ones where I quietly fell apart.

Help me to stop hiding my pain from You,
and trust that You can hold what feels too heavy for me.

Today, I release my sorrow into Your hands.

Replace what I’ve been carrying
with Your peace, Your comfort, and Your joy.

You see me.
You care for me.
You are with me in all of it.
You see my tears, and answer them!

In Jesus’ name,
Amen.