During my Doctoral sojourn in New Zealand, thousands of miles from my island home in Jamaica, I struggled constantly with feelings of sadness, alienation, homesickness and depression. On one of my visits to my General Practitioner (primary care physician) he listened to me describing these emotions then asked:

“Wendy, do you ever cry?”

I shook my head, “no”.

“Learn to cry, it’s cathartic. It’ll relieve your stress” he recommended

 

Ever since then I cry when I am sad or just overcome with the issues and challenges of merely living. I go to my praying place, sit before my Lord and weep. If I can articulate the things which press me down I tell Him as bluntly and as unpolished as I feel. When My crying is over, I wash away my tears, pull myself together and get back out into the fray.

 

People around me have been known to comment that they never see me down or depressed, not like others. Of course, I get depressed and sad I tell them. What they do not know is that I have learned to cry as per my doctor’s advice so many years ago.

 

What I can tell my friends now is that when I cry, inevitably my thoughts wander to settle on two things. Firstly, I imagine how others who are encountering the same challenges must feel and how difficult the human conditions can be. This reminds me that I am not alone and that others encounter the same hardships to. Somehow that lessens the feeling of aloneness and places me as part of a whole company who share similar pain and distress. When I feel most frustrated and facetious, I remind God that He knows, through His son Jesus what it is like to be human. I bring to the fore those troubles and afflictions we constantly face and how frail and helpless we feel when we encounter them. I petition for relief if that is in His will. I almost always use the reference from Hebrews 4:15 to bolster my argument.

 

“For we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” (Heb 4:15 AV)

 

Secondly, while I am going through this mental exercise, my mind inevitably strays to the things I can be thankful for. I begin to enumerate them, starting with the most immediate and my most favorite blessing: life, food, family, sanity; good health and the list goes on. For some reason this exercise constantly kicks in when I begin to ruminate about the things that make me sad. Perhaps this occurs because I frequently recall the words of a hymn we used to sing in devotions when I was a little girl:

 

“When upon life’s billows you are tempests tossed,

And you are discouraged thinking all is lost.

Count your blessings Name them one by one,

and it will surprise you what the Lord has done.

Chorus:

Count your blessings, name them one by one,

Count your blessings see what God has done,

Count your blessings, name them one by one

and it will surprise you what the Lord has done.”

 

Then again, maybe it is because I have taught my kids and practiced the habit of giving thanks for at least one thing every night before we go to bed. If we can’t find at least one thing for which to thank God, I remind them that there is at least one thing about a bad day; it will end, and we don’t have to end with it. It nearly always cheers them up after they have faced their bad days.

 

Whatever the reason, this reaction is inevitably triggered and by the time I am finished the tears dry up and glimmers of hope and optimism restore my emotional balance.

 

So now the secret is out. I am tough as nails and ferocious in life’s battles for all those who know me. But that’s because I cry when I need to.

 

Reference

 

Oatman, Johnson (1897) “Count Your Blessings”. Story behind the Song Count Your Blessing. Published 2014.

http://www.staugustine.com/living/religion/2014-11-20/story-behind-song-count-your-blessings

VisitedOctober 8, 2018