A Record of Our Tears

Scripture reminds us that God keeps our tears in a bottle. In fact, we are told in Psalm 56:8, "You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book."

When I was in Israel in 2008 before our son Christopher died, we were running through town, and we went to a Jewish antiquities store I had heard about. In this store were relics dating back 3,000 years. It was like a museum, except you were allowed to hold things. (If you dropped them, of course, it would cost a fortune.) As I was looking around, I saw a lot of fragments of pottery and a lot of very weathered things.

But then, standing out in the midst of all those antiquities was a beautiful, translucent blue bottle. So I asked the man who owned the store, "Sir, what is this blue bottle?"

"Oh, that is a Roman tear bottle," he told me.

"Really?" I said. "I have never heard of a Roman tear bottle. What is that?"

He said, "The Romans believed that when they lost a loved one, if they put their tears in a bottle, they would be recorded in Heaven."

I was immediately reminded of what the psalmist said: "You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book."

Well, I have a tear bottle. (Not the one from the Jewish antiquities store. It was too expensive.) I have a tear bottle in Heaven, where God keeps a record of every tear I have shed and where God keeps a record of every tear you have shed.

God is keeping our tears in a bottle so that someday, He will wipe them away.