Tears ! . . .

LET your tears come.  Let them water your soul - Eileen Mayhew.

LETting down our guard, releasing the tension that keeps us taut, often invites our tears that soften us, melt our resistance, reveal our vulnerability, which reminds us that we are human.  So often we need reminding that we are human.

Perfectionism may be our bane, as it is for so many of us.  We've learned to push, push harder, and even harder, yet, not only ourselves but those around us.  We must be better, we think, and we tighten our hold on life.  We need to loosen our grip, if we will.  WHEN we loosen our grip, even on this day, this activity, this person, we get carried gently along and find that which we struggled to control, happening smoothly and naturally.  Life is a series of ironies.

We should not hide from our tears.  We can trust their need to be present.  Perhaps, they need to be present for someone else, as well as ourselves.  Tears encourage compassion; maybe our assignment in life, today, is to help someone else experience compassion.

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My tears will heal.  
And the wounded are everywhere.

K. Casey

** THE Oyster !! **

"WHEN seemingly needless suffering invades our lives, we often ask ourselves, "Who needs all this grief?" But consider, for a moment, the origin of pearls!

EACH Pearl is formed by an Oyster's internal response to a wound caused by an irritant, such as a grain of sand. Resources of repair rush to the injured area. The final result is a lustrous Pearl. Something beautiful is created that would have been impossible without the wound.

IN today's Bible reading ("God has caused me to be fruitful in the land of my affliction" - GENESIS 41:52.), we see Joseph IN a position of influence, a position God soon used to feed surrounding Nations and Joseph's family during famine. But, how did he become influential? It began with a wound - being sold into slavery (Genesis 39) - which produced a pearl of usefulness. BECAUSE Joseph drew on God's resources when humiliated, he became better, NOT bitter. He named his second son Ephraim, which means "twice fruitful", and he said, "God has caused me to be fruitful in the land of my affliction" (Genesis 41:52).

Author Paul E. Billheimer says of Joseph, "If human pity could have rescued him from the sad part of his life, the glorious part that followed would have been lost". So, if your'e suffering, remember: No wounds, no pearls"! - JEY.

If we accept adversity,
Enduring every pain,
Then we will learn what we should know;
Our grief will turn to gain. - Sper