I got into an argument with one of my kids, and tears started to fill his eyes. I could see the pain of his heart in him. I could see that the pain was not because of the argument, but that the argument was just a trigger to expose the pain of his heart.
What was the pain about? Do we always really know? Or do we just hurt and know that we have tears that we must cry?
My mom died when I was 6 years old. We cried one time all together, and then lived a life of pretense, like my mom was never a part of our lives. So my siblings and I (and probably our dad) learned to cry in silence and behind doors. No one ever offered a pair of arms for us to cry in. And those tears got stuck in my heart, and they are still trying to get out 40 years later.
I took my kid and held him tightly in my arms and let him cry. He cried for 45 minutes. The door of the heart was open and the hurt was getting released. I still don’t know what he cried about, and he probably does not either. That was pain that was stuck in his heart.
Tears are like water to clean a wound. Sometimes, we have to re-open the wound and cry it out to heal.