A Record of Our Tears
“He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.” - (Revelation 21:4)
Scripture reminds us that God keeps our tears in a bottle. In fact, we are told in Psalm 56:8, “You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.”
When I was in Israel in 2008 before our son Christopher died, we were running through town, and we went to a Jewish antiquities store I had heard about. In this store were relics dating back 3,000 years. It was like a museum, except you were allowed to hold things. (If you dropped them, of course, it would cost a fortune.) As I was looking around, I saw a lot of fragments of pottery and a lot of very weathered things.
But then, standing out in the midst of all those antiquities was a beautiful, translucent blue bottle. So I asked the man who owned the store, “Sir, what is this blue bottle?”
“Oh, that is a Roman tear bottle,” he told me.
“Really?” I said. “I have never heard of a Roman tear bottle. What is that?”
He said, “The Romans believed that when they lost a loved one, if they put their tears in a bottle, they would be recorded in heaven.”
I was immediately reminded of what the psalmist said: “You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.”
Well, I have a tear bottle. (Not the one from the Jewish antiquities store. It was too expensive.) I have a tear bottle in heaven, where God keeps a record of every tear I have shed and where God keeps a record of every tear you have shed.
God is keeping our tears in a bottle so that someday, He will wipe them away.
Summary sentence: Does knowing God is keeping your tears in a bottle bring you comfort?
Tags: Tears, sorrow
Copyright © 2012 by Harvest Ministries. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
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