Tears for Fears

Well, lucky me just returned from a most wonderful 3-day trip to Vail, Colorado...compliments of Acts29. Words just can't do justice to how wonderful this trip was for both Jonathan and me. Not only did we get the opportunity to escape to a gorgeous location (Vail!! did you hear me correctly?? VAIL, COLORADO!!!), but we were also surrounded by 124 other church planting couples. This fact alone is a dream-come-true for a planter's wife - amen???

This was our second Acts29 Pastors' retreat. My how I've grown since the last one. I think I'll save some of that for another post. For now, I'd love to share one simple but very meaningful observation.

So, there are a LOT of women in this group. Couples came from all over the country so you can imagine how distinct each of is from one another - our accents alone can tell quite a diverse story! There are other differences, too, such as how much makeup we wear, how granola we are, how many children we have (one couple was pregnant with their 10th!!!), how we interact with our husbands, and how we like to spend our free time. It's amazingly beautiful how each one of us still stands out as quite unique within this network. I love it!!!

Even with all these differences, there is one thing we all have in common. Can you guess it? I'll give you a moment.....

TEARS

I'm actually welling up with my own tears as I write this, so, yes, it's true. We are all able to cry at the drop of a hat. Some typical conversations I had went like this:

* "How are you?"......TEARS
* "How long have you been planting?" ....... TEARS
* "How's your marriage?" .........TEARS
* "How do you like being a pastor's wife?".......LOTS OF TEARS

and on and on and on.

Tears of Fear
Tears of heartache
Tears of regret
Tears of confusion
Tears of loneliness
and for some even Tears of joy!

"When words fail, tears fall"

That's a quote by Charles Swindoll, and I found it to be so true for each woman that I met and spoke with this week. As we would stand in a hallway and just barely begin to get to know each other, our eyes would fill with tears. Rarely did we address those tears with one another because we just didn't need to. We understood. I think even more than that, we appreciated that the other woman standing across from us didn't need to ask - we were standing in a room full of people who understood. Even now, though we've all gone back to our own cities - I left knowing that somewhere in the world are 124 other women living life as I am. Often with tears, yet always with Christ our redeemer.

While thinking about these tears - I have been reminded of Psalm 56. I won't post the Psalm, but I would surely recommend reading it and, dare I say it, memorizing it. Once you've read it, you'll understand! I think that maybe, just maybe, our Lord does have a bottle for each of our tears....won't it be neat if each bottle looks different for each of us??? I wonder what mine looks like? I hope it has rhinestones on it!