By Sandra Bost
I had an encouraging conversation with a friend at church this past Sunday. We were talking about the propensity we both have to cry when we are grateful or in awe of something we sense that The Lord has done. I was trying to explain to him how I have been this way for most of my life, but that it seems to be harder to stop the waterworks the older I get. I have noticed the same thing in my daddy and my husband, too. I think there is something about growing older that makes our eyes leaky. It’s like we realize how wonderful life is and finally slow down enough to perceive the simple beauty that surrounds us every day. Anyway, it reminded me of my time in Africa.
In 2010, thanks to the generosity of amazing friends, I was provided an opportunity to join a 10-day mission trip to Togo in West Africa. As I was preparing to make the trip, people asked how they could pray for me. Without hesitation, I asked them to pray that I would not cry. From the puzzled looks on their faces, I could tell that they were looking for something more spiritual. But, they had not experienced me ugly crying in the corner of a nursing home, or trying to minister through snot and tears at the adult day center for people with cerebral palsy. Plus, I grew up watching the commercials for the Save the Children Federation and had seen Sally Struthers cry. I was going to be prepared.
To make a long story very short, I am an empath. I usually score high in “feeling” on the Myers Briggs Personality Test. (I love to take those quizzes.) Even though being moved to tears through compassion is not the same thing as being an emotional wreck, I have empathized long enough to know that it is sometimes mistaken for weakness. I did not want to stand face to face with the abject poverty that I knew was coming and be rendered useless by sobs when I finally got my feet on African soil. So, my friends prayed, and my God answered.
I could fill up pages about the excruciating living conditions common in those red dirt villages. We could spend hours talking about the lack of clean water and the parasites that cause the babies’ bellies to swell due to malnutrition. We could weep together over the plight of these people who can’t earn money because every moment is spent trying to survive. But, I want to tell you about the Joy and what I believe God said to me about crying over what I saw.
You may think that poverty and joy do not coexist, but I am here to tell you emphatically that in the most remote villages of Togo, gladness overflows to the rhythm of African drums. Mommas wearing the sweetest brown babies on their backs, wrapped in bright patterned cloth, dance with reckless abandon, while men form circles and clap with joy flashing the brightest smiles amidst the hardships. This people group has tapped into a source of Joy like I have scarcely seen in America, especially under such heartbreaking circumstances.
I was getting ready for the last church service of the trip, pondering every single experience, when suddenly I realized that I had not cried a single time in 9 days. I couldn’t believe it. As I was thanking God for hearing and answering that prayer, I heard Him whisper to my heart, “Don’t weep for these children, they know that they need Me and they will find me. Instead, weep for your children. They have everything and don’t know that I am their source of Life.”
At that moment, I felt a tear forming in my eye, but it did not fall until the next day when I boarded the plane to head back to the land of plenty. I have never forgotten that experience and have not stopped praying for those children and the children of my land. I have also not stopped crying since then, for both Joy and sadness. I cry for joy at the sweet simplicities that fill my heart with gladness. Tears of sadness fall for the way we go about our American lives as if we are the center of it all. I pray to be a people like the Togolese. May we perceive, recognize, and understand the Wonder of the true Joy Giver (Philippians 3:10) and seek Him with reckless abandon as if our lives depend on it. Because, they do.
