It’s Okay To Cry

I’m what some might call an emotional person.

If you were to talk to any of my close friends, they’d probably give you the spiel of: “When Sammy’s happy, she cries. When Sammy’s sad, she cries. When she’s frustrated, tired, or overwhelmed, she cries.” Okay, so I’m a crier. I’ve embraced it.

But I didn’t use to, and still sometimes don’t.

For years, I’ve gone back and forth, attempting to find the balance between feeling my emotions and not letting them rule over me. There have been a lot of challenging moments where I have dwelled in my emotions, even if they had no tie to truth or reality. I’d get stuck in a cycle of allowing negative feelings to leave a mark on all the different areas of my life. Then there are moments where I’ve felt what seems to be like nothing at all, because I’ve pushed down feelings left and right to the point of causing an emotional blockage that brought a sort of numbness to my life.

It’s been a journey, to say the least, and I’m still learning the balance of it all.

Lately, there’s been a story from the Bible that has really had me thinking about what it looks like to walk a path of navigating emotions with honesty and righteousness.

In this story, there’s a man named Job. Job was a man that the Bible introduces as “blameless and upright.” A man who, in Job 2:3, God calls one that “holds fast to his integrity.” Then, immediately following these praises of Job’s character, God allows the enemy to test and torment Job, so the enemy starts off by covering Job’s body in sores from head to toe. And that’s just the beginning of his suffering. If you read all the way through his story, you’ll see that Job ends up losing just about everything in his life. But Job, in his upright way, never cursed God for allowing things to happen. Even when his wife told him to do so, the Bible says:

“In all this Job did not sin with his lips.”

- Job 2:10

Now, I’ve read through the story of Job before, but this time something stuck out to me that hadn’t previously. Three of Job’s friends decided to visit him when they heard of his turmoil. And in Job 2:12-13 it says,

And when they saw him from a distance, they did not recognize him. And they raised their voices and wept, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads toward heaven. And they sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great.

- Job 2:12-13

The signs of Job’s suffering showed. He wasn’t holding fast to his integrity and faith in God because he wasn’t affected by his circumstances. It wasn’t that Job didn’t show signs of suffering; it was that he trusted in who God was, even when everything around him was taking a toll on him emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and physically.

Throughout the rest of the book of Job, you see dozens of chapters filled with Job lamenting over his life and the pain he was experiencing on a regular basis. There are stanzas upon stanzas filled with heart-wrenching cries that, if you’ve experienced any form of loss, suffering, trauma, or pain, you feel to your core as you read. And Job expresses these emotions without shame.

But here’s the most important piece of this, Job poured out every piece of his heart, day in and day out, but eventually, he did not allow his emotional state to identify who he was or how he would go about his life as he looked ahead.

There are four lessons I think we can take away from Job’s story about emotions and suffering.

1. Job didn’t try to hide the fact that he was human. He wasn’t caught up in looking like he had his life together. He was honest and transparent with the fact that his human strength could not handle what was being thrown his way. Oftentimes, you and I can get caught up in the defense mechanism of everything looking perfect from the outside that we neglect the state of our inmost well-being.

1. Job felt the emotions in his suffering. He didn’t run away from them, instead, he sat with them, spoke about them, and processed through them. Job cried, so why don’t we?

1. Job’s emotional honesty made space in his heart and soul for him to realize his need for God. Emotions are good, but they aren’t God. I know that there are so many moments where I know what the truth of reality is, but there’s a disconnect between what I know and what I feel. But when we take the time to let our emotions out, knowing full well that they aren’t always the best defining factor for what is reality, space is made for God to fill us up with the truth.

1. Eventually, Job recognized that, even if it felt like it in moments, his present emotional turmoil wasn’t his end. He was reminded of how God’s thoughts and ways are far above his, and he lifted his eyes to God to speak of His glory. The last line in the book of Job actually says: “And Job died an old man, and full of days.” If that’s not a simple and beautiful depiction of God taking our brokenness and suffering and turning it for good, I don’t know what is.

Life with the Lord doesn’t look like us being unbothered or immune to the torment and pain of the world and the enemy.

Rather it looks like emotional honesty coming together with the knowledge and trust in the unwavering truth about who God is.

So, find time today to actually sit with your emotions, be brutally honest with yourself and with God, and let Him fill you up with truth and hope that who He is will always be enough.

Sammy Denton

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