The Last Tear
Psalm 30:5 is such a gift of hope for
the Christian, and especially for the Christian who hurts. That verse says,
(Psalm 30:5) Weeping may go on all night, but joy
comes with the morning.
That’s
a message for here and now; after a night of pain, of hurt, of grief, of
weeping, a new day of joy will come to those who belong to God. God gives many beautiful sunrises in this
life and we praise Him for them.
But
this verse also points us to the end of the story, to the day when our journey
through every dark valley is over and we reach home. God allowed John to see that eternal morning
and the healing it will bring to us.
(Revelation 21:4) He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or
mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.
I
was the chaplain on call at Spartanburg Regional Medical Center when the
telephone rang. I knew that call would
come some day, but I wasn’t ready to hear it.
My dad was in an ambulance on his way to the hospital. He had been at home for weeks, suffering from
a brain tumor that medical science didn’t know how to fight. The growing tumor pressed too hard upon dad’s
brain, causing a cerebral hemorrhage that would, in a matter of moments or
hours, end his life. I rushed from one
hospital to another, from Spartanburg where I worked to the emergency room of
the Greenville General Hospital.
Two
deacons from my home church met me at the door and took me to my family in one
of the private waiting rooms the hospital provides for families of critically
ill patients. The other members of my
family had seen Dad and, for the moment, had seen enough. My brother, Barry, offered to go with me so
that I, too, could have a few moments with dad.
The second I saw him, I knew that the tumor had struck a mortal blow to
the strongest man I’ve ever known. A
breathing tube kept his airway opened, but he struggled for air like a fish out
of water. His eyes seemed to look beyond
the ceiling, no longer seeing this world.
He couldn’t respond to us by speaking or even squeezing my hand, but I
thought that, just maybe, he could still hear us. So Orin’s two boys tried to express our
gratitude for a father’s lifetime of love in a few words. We told him that we loved him. We thanked him for being such a great
dad. We told him that we would always be
proud to be his sons. Then we just stood
there, watching and waiting. Then it
happened. With life slipping away from
him, a single tear flowed out of the corner of dad’s right eye and rolled down
the side of his face. And then, in a few
short moments, he was gone.
Only
later, as I relived that moment as grieving people do, did I realize what I had
seen. I saw my father’s last tear. He’s not shed one since and he never will
again. His last night of weeping is over
and the dawn of eternal joy has come.
Many
wise and loving people prepared me for life, but none of them prepared me for
how many tears life brings: the agony of a tough decision, doing your best and
realizing that it’s not enough, investing your life in people who, one day,
just walk away, the weariness of fighting battles that won’t end, the sting of
death. Sometimes there are just too many
tears.
But
those tears don’t wash away my hope or my joy, because I know the end of the
story. I know that I will shed a last
tear. At the end of my story, after I’ve
trusted Him through every night of weeping, the morning will come, God’s great
morning will come and He will wipe them all away. And we will know that it was worth it
all.