YOU HAVE TO CRY SOMETIMES

excerpt taken from The Ten Step M.A.N. by Rev. Dr. Edward Mulraine www.edwardmulraine.com

Take time to cry. Tears are a cleansing method created by God to free emotions, not to show weakness. You can still be a strong man and cry. David cried. Jesus wept. David said, “The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and his ears are open unto their cry.” God is listening to your cry! Find a place you can let it out. Especially when it’s your child you’re missing. Especially when it’s your wife you’re divorcing. Especially when it’s your job, house, or car you’re losing. Especially when it’s yourself you’re abusing. Especially when it’s your dreams you’re pursuing but not reaching. Find a place to let it out.

The breastplate of righteousness will carry you through all that you inhabit and bring you into a new day. As the Psalms say, “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.” That’s the talk of a faithful man crying. It may take many nights before you see the sunlight, but one morning you will get up and feel God’s joy. God will comfort and strengthen your heart in the midst of affliction: “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all .” Your cry will open the door to your deliverance. You will see a new day, and you will look back and thank God you didn’t give into suicide, homicide, abuse, and/or violence. You fought temptation.

MORE SENSITIVE TO OTHER MEN

Your trials and tribulations will also make you more sensitive to other people’s pain, and particularly to the pain of other men, young and old. A lot of men like to dismiss the pain and tears of their sons and brothers. Many men like to laugh at other men in their moment of mourning and call them “chumps,” “weak,” or “punks” for expressing pain, sorrow, and tears. But until those men have hurt or lost someone— either through death, disaster, or disease—it will be hard for them to understand another man’s pain. Sometimes God will break us down with grief and aches so great that we become more receptive to other people’s suffering. No man is too hard to fall or too big to fail. Therefore pain is not only a way to endure suffering, but also a way to sensitize us to others. God desires that we be open to each other’s pain.