Being tender with your tears

I’ve recently been dipping into a fabulous book of poetry, ‘Let Me Be The Kind Who Weeps’, by Jon Swales, leader of the Lighthouse community in Leeds. The poetry is real, gritty, true; honestly charting the reality of ministry to those who are battered and bruised by life and have largely lost all hope of God ever caring about them.

Life’s tough.  And it’s always healthy to cry. Tears are a natural release of tensions held within our body, sometimes tucked away there for years.

Some words of a song hit me deeply yesterday and I instantly felt tears rising in me. They were sad, they were beautiful, they were unexpected.  But they were part of my ongoing, never ending, healing journey. Deep grief about things long past has been pouring itself out through me as I’ve begun to settle into rest and quiet. Perhaps because it now can, as I begin a sabbatical and give my mind space from its usual noise.

It’s easy to be frustrated by this, angry even. It’s tempting to fight the feelings; to suppress them or distract myself from them.  And of course that’s what often happens in the busyness of our ordinary days. 

We all do it.  You too.  But I’m learning to practice what I write about in Healing Life's Wounds. I’m learning to let the tears, and all the associated physical sensations that power through my body, simply ‘be’. I’m learning to welcome them rather than subdue them; to fully observe them; to be gentle with them and channel love into them.  And though that’s not an easy process, it’s healing. And each time I manage it, a few more cells in my body return into healthy balance.

'Holding my emotions in awareness and love' feels counterintuitive, because our instincts are always to rapidly get rid of the pain.  But it helps so much.

In the book I use an acronym to help you remember this: H.E.A.L.  

It’s a process that helps restore calm when you’re experiencing strong feelings.  

Why not try it?  

Or better still, buy the book and work through it.

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Letting go ... sabbatical time

The joy on the toddler’s face lit me up. Seeing him scattering a pile of fallen leaves awakened happy memories of my own childhood; remembrances of the annual magic of brightly coloured leaves carpeting a woodland floor. 

It’s that time of year again. Autumn. For the trees, a necessary season of letting go, as they hunker down to rest through the winter and prepare themselves for the new growth that will stir in the spring.  

We all need seasons of rest and renewal, and I am entering such a season. After an incredibly demanding few years, I am about to take a sabbatical. In a time of powerful prayer ministry at the British Christian Writers conference, the prophetic message was clear: ‘Lay it all down for a season. Stop, and rest in Me’. So I’m embarking on a season of hunkering down, and trusting God with all my ongoing projects; a time to let go and enter deep rest, ready for whatever new ministry may subsequently stir.  

I don’t find it easy to lay down the various ministry projects I am engaged in, and it’s particularly challenging whilst my new book is still in its launch phase.  But the call to do so for a while seems clear. Time to let go. And trust God.

‘Letting go’, when the time is right, is part of nature.  We all need to do it, and not just through domestic decluttering. 

Learning to let go is crucially important in the context of our inner healing. And we’re not always good at it.  We have a tendency to cling onto all manner of hurts and feelings long after they have served their useful purpose, long after it would have been healthy to let go and move on. 

Which is why there’s a whole chapter in Healing Life’s Wounds about the importance and healing potential of letting go.

Is there anything you might need to let go of?  Might it be time for you to do so? 

If you haven’t read the book yet you can pick up a copy here.

Meanwhile, I’m off to do my own letting go  ...   I might just kick up a few autumn leaves along the way.
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