There was a practice in ancient days for mourners to catch their tears in bottles or water skins, and put them at the tombs of their loved ones.

Many years ago, I read a book about a woman visiting heaven in a dream one night. One of the rooms she saw was called the room of tears. She somehow knew that there were many of these rooms in heaven. As she explored the room, she saw many bottles on shelves with names under them. Then an angel appeared at the door with a flask containing a fluid which she understood to be tears from the earth. The angel then went to a certain name and filled the bottle on the shelf with the tears he had collected. The angel took the bottle and went to an ornate book on a beautiful table at the entrance of the room and poured the tears onto one of the pages of the book. Immediately, as he poured, writing appeared in this book. The angel took the page of the book and took it to the Father in heaven on His throne. God the Father then assigned angels to be released to the earth to answer the prayer of the tears that were written on the page.

Could this possibly be true? Could God love us that much that he holds our tears as being that precious? The psalmist, David, seems to think so. In Psalm 56:8 he writes, You number my wanderings; put my tears into Your bottle; are they not in Your book?

Long ago, I found an old journal of mine and read a passage I had forgotten about. I had written about a deep hurt in my heart. Being single for many years I was very distressed that my prayers for a husband had not been answered yet. In my journal I wrote about how I was crying in the shower. The release of those tears felt strangely good as I quietly sobbed and let my tears mingle with the shower of cleansing water.

It was then that I heard a quiet voice in my thoughts that wasn’t my own saying, “How do you expect Me to separate all those tears from the water coming down?”

I knew instantly what He meant, and it made me laugh because I knew that He was there, beside me, and that He cared.

As my body slowly stopped shaking from sobbing, I found myself with a smile on my face that wouldn’t let go. You see, I know God can do anything, but the mental image of His angels separating those tears from the water as they were falling and bottling them were so amusing I had to laugh.

How deep is the Lord’s love!? I sensed that so fully from His small teasing statement as He urged me from a sense of despair to a deeper level of faith in Him and His love for me.

The Lord eventually answered that prayer and sent me a Godly husband who I had 28 wonderful years with before he passed away from a heart attack.

As I was pondering over that entry from many years ago, I suddenly wondered, “Who collects the Father’s tears? “That is when the words to this poem started coming to me.”.

The Father’s Tears

Who collects the Father’s tears?

Shed throughout eternity’s years

They would have formed a river wide

For from His eyes can nothing hide.

The Father’s heart is deep and vast

It holds eternity in its grasp

Within its depths was each created

And in His book was each life dated

His Father’s heart calls out “Return!”

For of His ways must each one learn

Left on our own we all do stray

From off the path marked, “narrow way”

He knows the way we take and weeps

For what we sow in life we reap

He longs to gather us under His wings

Where each one is safe and joyfully sings

Each must choose – we have a free will

His children have a destiny to fulfill

Praise Him Who all our sorrow bears

But who collects the Father’s tears?

God speaks to His children in many different ways. One of the ways He speaks to me is through poetry. As I sit in my devotional time and listen, I quiet myself and ask God what is on His mind. The verses of poetry come to me slowly line by line. Sometimes the poem will be what I am thinking and sometimes I write down what I think I hear the Lord speaking to my heart. It might even be a conversation between the two of us. The topics are many and varied. 

To understand this next poem, you have to understand how the refinement of gold and silver happens.  The refiner sits at the melted pot of metal and heats it to a liquid stage.  Impurities, called dross, then come to the surface where they can be skimmed off.  If they are not skimmed off, the impurities then mingle back in with the metal when the metal cools down.  To further remove the remaining impurities the refiner needs to turn the heat back up again to bring the dross back to the surface.

When a refining fire happens in our lives, and brings sin to the surface to deal with, we need to get rid of the impurities in our life hindering our relationship with God.  If not, don’t be surprised to find the heat getting turned up again and again.  The Lord does this to discipline and purify us, not destroy us.  It is because He loves us and wants to pull the things out that are harmful.

How do we know when the dross is gone from the pot of gold?  When the refiner looks in the pot and sees his reflection staring back at him. 

I will leave you with this thought. God has made a way in the midst of all our failures. He promised that everything we go through, the good and the bad, will work out for our good. What greater treasure could we experience than that?

Remove the Dross

Get ready, get ready, My love, My desire
The refinement procedure does include fire
For in this process the dross will arise
Impurities will surface that have been hindering the wise.

Get ready, get ready to remove all the dross
Failure to do so will reveal a tremendous loss
For if it remains and the mixture gets cool
The result is a child who acts like a fool.

How will you know when no dross is detected?
You will look in the mirror and see Me reflected
Christ in you, the hope of your glory
To be joined with Me is your song and your story

Get ready, get ready, and make your robe white
Put holy salve on your eyes for new sight
I am waiting behind the lattice at the door
Will you hear Me knocking or will My voice you ignore?

Get ready, get ready come dine with Me
Our love will last throughout eternity
Those who overcome I will give the right
To sit on by My side forever in My sight.