If you have tear ducts, you have permission to cry. Society trained me to resist my tears. I’m still trying to overcome that. I’ve discovered that to block tears is to jam up my heart.

Laughing is often a cover up for sadness. Crying is frequently an expression of joy.

Tears expressed eventually lead to joy. Tears repressed maintain your pain. There is strength in tears. It takes great courage to openly cry. Tears enable us to connect with our noblest feelings and heal our most painful ones.

Tears are the words the eyes. They reveal a kind and open heart. To silence them is to censor their attempt to bring you inner healing.

Instead of wiping the tears from our eyes, we should let our tears wipe the pain from our heart. Instead of wiping away your tears, wipe away your embarrassment and cry anyway. Unfortunately, I’ve often denied the tracks of my tears, due to my lack of courage to admit them. (Crying is for the courageous. The words “cry baby” need to be replaced with “cry hero.”)

Seeing someone cry touches our heart. People who have clamped down their heart, often try to stop others from crying. But that is like telling them to stop smiling. It’s an infringement on their right to open up their heart. Trying to get someone to quit crying doesn’t comfort them. It manipulates them.

Tears are cleansing. To avoid them is like avoiding a bath. It’s easy to be afraid of our tears (and the tears of others), however, unrestrained tears, allowed to flow until they stop on their own, are rare.

Joy, gratitude, awe, compassion, or pain, can all call forth tears. When something is beyond words, tears will often come through for you, if you let them. To refuse to cry when prompted from within, is to deny what’s happening in your heart.

Tears are more than water. The ability to cry because of another’s pain is the gift of heart-felt compassion. To be ashamed of your heart-felt tears is to be ashamed of a gift from God.

It doesn’t seem right that public laughter is acceptable, but public crying isn’t. Live with the sensitivity and freedom to laugh or cry as your heart is moved.

Sometimes life is better understood thru heart-felt tears than thru cold, hard logic. In some of the happiest moments of my life, tears of joy have overflowed my eyes.

If you’ve never let awe move you to tears, you’ve missed out on a powerful experience. Sincere, heart-felt crying, always produces “a good cry.”

The idea that tears show weakness and that crying should be avoided, is false. To allow yourself to cry when deeply moved is a sign of courage. Through out the Bible, men don’t hide their tears, but openly cry.

In the Bible, crying in public is common; but laughing in public is rare. Modern societies are the opposite. Focusing on the living Jesus moves me to tears.

Biblical prophets often, publicly cried. Today, few who claim to be prophets openly cry. The “rivers of living water” that Jesus prophetically said would flow from within you as the Holy Spirit, sound a lot like deep, healing tears.