The Last Tear

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.