An Offering of Tears; An Offering of Praise
I love to experience the cusp of a changing season. It’s such a relief to smell winter’s thaw as the ground softens and birds return to sing their sweet morning melodies. Few things are as thrilling as that first autumn chill in the air and the sight of the first leaves that harken to the coming of the holiday season’s cheer. The rhythm of change from winter to spring and summer to fall reminds me of Ecclesiastes 3: “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.”
As a woman who loves Jesus and yearns to see His kingdom here on earth as it is in heaven, I long to be “a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God” (Romans 12:1). While there have been seasons of my life where my spiritual worship has felt unhampered and fruitful, I have learned that God’s thoughts are not my thoughts and His economy is so different than mine. In the seasons where all I had to offer the Lord was my weeping, He was just as pleased in that tearful surrender as in seasons where I thought my living sacrifice was more valuable.
There was a season as a young, single woman where I threw myself into my school studies and into my church. I was involved in many church ministries and seeking to reach out to my classmates who didn’t know the Lord. It was a planting and sowing season that the Lord used to develop in me a healthy diligence—stamina and desire to seek the lost.
Another such season was in the early years of my marriage. My husband and I poured ourselves into our local church and into developing relationships with other like-minded couples who loved the Lord. Our spiritual worship to God showed itself in a robust life of community, service, and fellowship. This was a season of building. If I’m honest, these were the easy seasons. They were full, rewarding, and vibrant. I felt like my offerings of love to the Lord were meaningful, notable, and fulfilling.
In contrast, there have been seasons where my sacrifice of worship has been faithful, repetitive, and quiet obedience. When my older three children were quite young, I lived in a daily blur of bottles, diapers, nap times, and runny noses. That season was definitely not easy, but the smiles and giggles made my heart burst with joy. It was a season of birth, loving, and laughing. I knew that my offering of worship to God as a mother was precious in His sight, and the daily grind and mundane work attached to that calling was just as significant in His eyes as a missionary in the field.
However, the season of life where I was tempted to feel useless, and wonder how I could be an offering of worship to God, was the season of tears.
Before I was blessed with my living children, there was a time when I felt like my life was a constant cycle of “hope deferred makes the heart sick” (Proverbs 13:12). I had always wanted to be a mom, and getting married at twenty made me think that I’d be bouncing around a baby or two within a few years. Yet each month I’d find myself staring at another negative pregnancy test through tears.
After many such months of disappointment, the tears were overflowing. I felt like the disciples in the boat during the tempest in Matthew 8: “Save us, Lord; we are perishing.” I knew God could let me conceive. I knew He knew what He was doing. But, like the disciples, I fought to believe that He cared that I could drown—drown in my own tears.
It was easy to believe the lie that I was missing my calling, or that being a mother was the only real way I could honor the Lord as a married woman. But through the solid doctrine in my church, the constant encouragement of my husband, godly family and friends, and the Spirit’s work in my heart, I threw myself into what God had in front of me during that season.
I clung to the promise in Mathew 6:33: “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” My husband and I led a small group at our church, and we stayed busy and others-focused. Seeking first His kingdom helped keep us from the gnawing self–pity that was quick to surface if we gave it opportunity.
After over two years of unexplained infertility, we began to pursue adoption. In the early stages of our home study application process, we were shocked to find out that I was pregnant. I heard my baby’s heartbeat at seven weeks, but after a routine nine–week visit, the sonogram showed that my sweet baby’s heart had stopped. These verses from Lamentations pierced through my mind,
“I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of His wrath; He has driven and brought me into darkness without any light; surely against me He turns His hand again and again the whole day long.”
Lamentations 3:1-3
And yet, by the grace of God, I fought against the tide of sorrow to, as Charles Spurgeon says, “kiss the waves that throw me up against the Rock of Ages.” I was able to truly say that it was well with my soul.
“But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in Him.”
Lamentations 3:21-24
In the season of tears, I had to choose to believe that not only was the Lord compassionate and kind, but that my tears were themselves an offering of praise to Him. I clung to Psalm 56:8 which promised, “You have kept count of my tossings, put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book?” My fight for faith to believe what was true about God during these times when prayers went unanswered and my hope was dim was a unique opportunity to show those around me that my faith—while weak, and at times trembling—was genuine.
My season of tears, however, did not last forever. Within thirteen months I went from desperately wanting to be a mom to having three children in my arms. After our little one went to be with Jesus, we immediately jumped back into the adoption process, and within three months we were in the hospital, holding our newborn baby daughter and signing adoption paperwork to bring her home. Six months later, I was pregnant with twins. When I looked back at the years of infertility and our miscarriage, I could truly understand the truth of William Cowper’s hymn, God Moves in a Mysterious Way:
God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform
He plants His footsteps in the seas
And rides upon the storm
Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never-failing skill
He fashions all His bright designs
And works His sovereign will
If you find yourself in a season of tears like the Psalmist who cried, “My tears have been my food day and night” (Psalm 42:3), give the Lord your tears as an act of worship to Him. When your life feels like one long, gray winter, give the Lord your groans and sighs. Maybe for you it’s the shattered hopes of infertility or the sonogram that shows your child is no longer alive. But the Lord reminds us that there is so much more going on under the surface of our hearts. The tears we shed may just be the water needed to bring a new seed to fruition— to usher in a new season.
Maybe your season of weeping is drawing to an end soon and those clouds will be swept away with the morning light. Perhaps God has not yet finished His intricate work in you through this season of tears. Maybe it won’t be until heaven that you can say with the Psalmist, “You have turned for me my mourning into dancing” (Ps 30:11). But right now, right where you are, your tears, which are being kept in His bottle, are eternally precious in His sight and can be a beautiful offering of praise and worship to Him.
- Lauren
Hope Mom to Baby Rohwer
Lauren is an undeserving and grateful follower of Jesus, wife to her beloved Paul, adoptive and biological mom of four (+ 1 glory baby), suburban housewife turned farmer’s wife and COO of her family’s farming enterprise. She’s currently homeschooling three of her children and in her free time loves to read, write, and hang with her girlfriends.
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