Bottled Up Tears

“Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall me comforted.”

-Matthew 5:4

I don’t know about y’all, but I am a major weeper. A good book, a great film, a birthday card, I weep!

Y’all can probably look back in to your past, and remember how you use to cry when your parents would rebuke you, or even when you weren’t getting your own way. You felt hurt, almost like they didn’t love you anymore,(even though now we realize just how untrue that was). You would cry from the deepest parts of your heart, completely broken hearted.

Now that we’ve grown up a bit, we still cry, but now we cry for slightly different reasons. Well, actually sometimes I still throw myself a big pity party when things aren’t going my way, or when I‘m hurt and upset. But maybe that’s just me. =)

With this blog, though, I really want to look at weeping from a biblical prospective. Not so much crying for ourselves, but crying for others. I would like to share with you something that the Lord has recently shown me from His Precious Word, and how it effected and encouraged me.

Over the past year, I have been praying for three young people who have turned their backs on God and have chosen instead to live in sin. It truly breaks my heart to see not only this, but also how their sin is effecting those around them. And most of all it kills me to think of not just the short term consequences of their sin, but also the long term.

In the short term aspect, Mother’s Day is coming up soon. These kids should be with their mothers that Sunday. But because they are living in sin, and their parents refuse to condone their sinful lifestyles(which is right), these kids, unless the Lord changes their hearts before then, will NOT be with their moms this Mother’s Day. That to me is so sad! If their hearts aren’t changed soon and if they don’t turn their lives around 180%, they are going to miss out on a whole lot more, like siblings birthdays and weddings and such. And when I think about this, it makes me sad to think that they may one day repent and turn back, but they’ll already have missed out on a lot that they should have been there for in the first place. Imagine the regret that they’ll have.

When I get to thinking of the long term effects it could have on them, I shudder. Their eternal souls are at stake! I wouldn’t wish the perishing of an eternal soul on even my worst enemy. It pains me to think that if they don’t repent they could be damned to an eternity in Hell if they are not already the children of God. And if they are children of God, the Lord is only going to allow them to continue to live on in sin for so long before He takes them home to be with Him. The death of anyone of these kids would be unbearable for me, and I’m sure for their families and friends also.

So, all of the above are the reasons that I go before the Lord in prayer, beseeching Him to convict them and call them to repentance. I pray that He will change their hearts, and call them back to Himself. For the Lord is willing that NONE should perish.

Often times when I am praying for these young people, I am crying out to God and weeping for them. I’m not saying this to bring any merit to myself, because that is definitely NOT my intention. I say this because it ties into my topic of prayer and tears.

When, I pray for these people something inside of me breaks and I can’t help but cry out to God to save them. I truly crushes me to see how sin is slowly destroying their lives.

But I praise God for the MANY assurances He has for His people in the Bible!!! The Lord has granted me hope from the promises of His Word! What an awesome God! These past couple of days He has raised me up from the state of mourning that I was in. He gave me a new hope and trust in His great power. And His assurances are what I want to share with you today.

Psalm 56:8-9 says, “Thou tellest my wanderings: put thou my tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy book? When I cry unto thee, then shall my enemies turn back: this I know; for God is for me.”

Aren’t those verses just beautiful?!?! First off, what a loving God we serve! Not only does He record our tears in His book, but He also bottles them up! How great is that? Our tears mean that much to Him, it’s so incredible!

I was so touched by these verses. Just knowing that my prayers and tears mean so much to God, assures me that He isn’t going to let them go to waste. My spirits were so lifted by reading these verses! They reminded me that the Lord does hear our prayers. And one day, God will choose to answer our prayers according to His perfect will. And the timing in which he chooses to act will be at the point and time when it brings the most honor and glory to Himself. Praise the Lord!

I also want to encourage you, that if you are praying for lost souls. That if you are falling on your knees before the throne of God, weeping and begging for the lost. God IS hearing you! He is catching your every tear, bottling them up and recording them in His book. He has a use for our tears and for our prayers. Again I say, Praise the Lord!

In conclusion I want to share with you a story about a little girl that I just heard recently. And also the words to a song that I grew up singing.

A young girl, about six years old, and her mother were reading the bible together and praying before it was time for her to go to bed. They had actually just finished reading the verses from Psalm that I shared with y’all above. The little girl asked her mother, “Why does God keep our tears?” And the Mother replied, “Because when we cry and ask the Lord for something, He wants to use our tears, not just let them go to waste.” The little girl nodded, and then they began to pray. The mother prayed first. She prayed for her older daughter, who had run away from home and was living in sin. She prayed that the Lord would convict her and turn her heart back to Him. When it came time for the little girl to pray, she simply said, “Dear Jesus, take these ones too.” The mother looked up to see what her daughter was talking about. The little girl had lifted her hands, wet from the tears that were streaming down her face, to the heavens. She wanted God to use those tears too.

I pray that we would all be like that little girl, and ask the Lord to use our tears and our prayers to accomplish His will!

Psalm 55:17 says, “Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud: and He shall hear my voice.” How amazing!

The next words I’m going to share with you are from the song “For Those Tears I Died.” Some of you may have heard it before, but either way I hope it is a blessing.



-For Those Tears I Died-

You said you’d come and share all my sorrows, You said You’d be there for all my tomorrows; I came so close to sending you away, But just like You promised You came there to stay-- I just had to pray.

Your goodness so great I can’t understand, And dear Lord, I know that all this was planned; I know You’re here now, and always will be, Your love loosed my chains and in you I am free-- But Jesus, why me?

Jesus, I give you my heart and my soul, I know that without God I’d never be whole; Savior, You opened all the right doors, And I thank You, and praise You from earth’s humble shores-- Take me, I’m Yours.

CHORUS: And Jesus said, “Come to the water, stand by my side; I know you are thirsty, you won’t be denied. I felt every tear-drop when in darkness you cried, And I strove to remind you that for those tears I died.”
                                      
                                       I also managed to find the song on YouTube... Enjoy!

Pickup Lines- Do They Work?

“We’re all a little weird, and life’s a little weird. And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them in mutual weirdness and call it love.”

                                                                                                                      - Dr. Seuss

Random little fact about me, I get great entertainment out of cheesy humor and pickup lines. Seriously, if you ever are in need of a good laugh, or in some cases a good eye roll, Google “Cheesy Pickup Lines.” It’s hilarious! I think mostly I think it’s so funny, because there are people out there in the world who actually use these pickup lines.

Picture this. A guy comes up to you and says, “I think I must have just died and gone to heaven, because baby you’re an angel.” Like, how do you respond to that? I would love to be a fly on the wall when a guy says that to a girl. Do guys actually think that’ll work?

My question and topic for this blog is as stated above, “Pickup Lines- Do they Work?” Well, do they? I’d have to say that the chances of them working are dependent on these two things: the person you’re using the line on, and the line that you choose to use. Let me give you some example’s of situations when pickup lines could work and when they could not.

So, let’s take your average guy and your average girl. Our average guy goes up to our average girl and says, “If you were a booger I’d pick you first.” Now lets just assume that our average girl has some common sense. If she’s does, she’ll slap the guy and walk away. Well, that’s what I’d do anyway. =) So, that’s and example of a bad pickup line that doesn’t work.

Now let’s take your average guy and girl again, this time using a different pickup line. Our guy goes up to our girl and says, “If beauty were time, you’d be eternity.” This one could work, but now you have to factor in the type of girl you’re saying it to. For instance, if you were to say this to me I might buy into it. BUT you have to remember that I like cheesy stuff, and not all girls are like that. Our guy might end up getting his faced slapped again… poor guy! =/

Girls are all different. So, cheesy pickup lines might work sometimes, but not necessarily. And maybe, because of this, guys don’t actually think that these lines will work, maybe they are just trying their luck to see where it gets them. Who knows?

A few weeks ago one of my friends actually said to me that she thought guys who used pickup lines were unoriginal and egotistical. She thought that they obviously thought very highly of themselves if they thought their pickup lines would work. I actually disagree though. I think they must be pretty humble. Think about it. A guy really takes his pride into his hands when he chooses to use a pickup line. He faces not only getting slapped, but also utter rejection. I mean, what if he goes through making a fool out of himself in front of a girl, and she just rolls her eyes and tells him to take a hike? OUCH! That’s utter rejection! It takes some kind of a guy to face rejection boldly, and I don’t think it’s an egotistical one.

We’ve now discussed whether or not pickup lines work on girls, so lets switch up gears a little bit and ask the question, “Do pickup lines work on guys?” Let me be one-hundred percent honest with you. I have ALWAYS wanted to try using one on a guy to see what will happen. =) Can you imagine that? Me going up to a guy and saying something along the lines of, “I just scraped my knee falling for you.” Yeah, I actually do see myself doing that! =) However, I don’t think that pickup lines work the same on guys, because guys aren’t quite as sappy as girls. BUT I could be wrong. I guess we’ll never know until I give it a try and tell all y’all about it. =) The worst I can foresee happening is me getting laughed off of the face of the earth, which would be legitimately embarrassing!

Alrighty, winding down to a conclusion. Do pick up lines work? As we’ve discussed, sometimes they do, but other times they don’t. The only way to find out though, is to try one out for yourself. However, as a warning, I advise you to use extreme caution and do so at your own risk. =) Oh, and you should definitely let me know how it works out for you… I could use a good laugh. =)

And what kind of blogger would I be if I didn’t equip my readers with good material to try out? So, here goes. Cheesy pickup lines : “Smoking is hazardous to your health… and baby you’re killing me.” “If I received a nickel for every time I saw someone as beautiful as you, I’d have five cents.” (if you ask me, you don’t have any “cents” if you use this line. ;)

“Do you have a map? I’m getting lost in your eyes.” “Is there an airport nearby or is that just my heart taking off?” “I was wondering if you had an extra heart mine seems to be stolen.” And here is my very personal favorite: “Do you believe in love at first sight, or should I walk by again?” =)

Alrighty, go and conquer the masses with your cheesy pickup lines. Best of luck to y’all. =)