Tears in Heaven

“and He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes;” Revelation 21:4

Tear – There is something extraordinary implied in this verse, something you may have never considered.  There will be tears in heaven.

We have this tendency to think of heaven as a panacea, a place where everything is light and joy and peace and wonder.  The white clouds and the golden streets and the fair-skinned angels seduce us.  But John implies that there is a place for tears in heaven.

If we cry in heaven, how can it be the ethereal relief from all our woes?  The answer is this:  the tears in heaven are radically different from the tears on earth.  It is the difference that matters, not the presence of salty drops from my eyes.  When I cry in heaven, God Himself will comfort me.  I will cry the last of my pain, my despair and my confusion.  I will cry the last of the tears of yearning to have been whole all that time I spent struggling to become completely His.  I will be able to let go of the deepest sorrows of my life, to empty myself of the years of regret and repentance.  I will cry the last tears of being less than I could have been, less than He wished me to be.  But most of all, in heaven I will shed the tears that finally unburden my soul from waiting.

There are tears in this world.  No one escapes them.  They are our common bond, the mark of our fall from grace.  Tears in this world do not find real comfort.  They find temporary relief, relief from that deeper brokenness that cannot be mended here.  That is why I must taste the drops of deliverance in His presence.  On that day when we become whole, we will be allowed to cry over the agony of being so broken.  We will cry because we will finally be free to be what He intended.

Welcome heaven with an open heart.  But do not expect to find only smiles and laughter.  The Father knows that healing requires those tears we could not shed here, the tears that finally take away our burden of longing to be holy.  On that day, He will wipe away the tears and they won’t come back.  From that day forward, all of my sorrows will be a fading memory, never to return.

It is a day that I long to know.