God keeps a tear-bottle!

(J.R. Miller, "Evening Thoughts" 1907)

"You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in Your bottle. You have recorded each one in Your book!" Psalm 56:8

Tears are sacred in God's sight. The Psalmist said that God keeps a tear-bottle, into which He puts the tears of His people. This means that God in Heaven hears the plashing of earth's tears. It means that His people's sorrows are sacred to Him, that He cherishes them, keeping them as memorials.

Our tears are precious to God, also, because in our sorrow He brings to us blessings which we never could receive but for our sorrow. One of our Lord's Beatitudes is for the sorrowing: "Blessed are those who mourn." It seems strange to us that mourning ones should be put among the blessed or happy ones. The reason is, because only those who suffer can get God's comfort, and this is such a blessing that it is worth while to have sorrow just to receive it.

God holds the tears of penitence as most sacred. Those who weep over their sins, cause joy in Heaven.

"When a woman who had lived a sinful life in that town learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee's house, she brought an alabaster jar of perfume, and as she stood behind Him at His feet weeping, she began to wet His feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them!" Luke 7:37-38