Everybody Cries

“Day and night I have only tears for food, while my enemies continually taunt me, says, “Where is this God of yours?”… Why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so sad? I will put my hope in God! I will praise him again — my Savior and my God!” Psalm 42:3 & 11

Today was a rough day. I don’t even know how it happened, but it seemed the more I thought about things, the worse it got. I tried to do things that make me Happy, even had good conversations with a few people, but that pit in the bottom of my stomach lingered. And as I spiraled I began to feel guilty, because my basic needs are met, I have great things on the horizon, there’s so much around me to be grateful for, and yet I couldn’t shake this overwhelming need to cry. I was Sad.

Has that ever happened to you before? You think about something looming and even though things are good for the most part, you just feel Sad. Because you’re thinking about what could have been, should have been, or just won’t be. This happens a lot around the holidays for some people. They call it Holiday Sadness and it’s very real. It can look like increased anxiety, depression or stress due to the pressures of the holiday season. I can imagine that it may hit more people than usual this year due to the changes in traditions and plans because of the pandemic. That’s part of what what happening for me. I thought about not being able to spend Christmas the way I’ve grown accustomed to, and no matter how festive I have been trying to make this little sanctuary of mine, not being able to gather with my my family this year is making me Sad.

So how do we deal with it? How do we deal with Holiday Sadness? I’ll touch on that throughout the season, but this week I’m going to encourage you to go ahead and feel it. Where I messed us was trying to move my Sadness to the side and pretend like it wasn’t there. I pushed through seemingly normal activities and later found myself sobbing inconsolably while my loved one tried to figure out what he had said that was wrong (I apologized profusely for that later). If I had just let myself feel it to begin with, I could have dealt with it better, and so can you. When Holiday Sadness comes, just feel it, and see if you don’t feel better after acknowledging it. David did. In Psalms he wrote about a time he felt so much Sadness, saying “Day and night I have only tears for food, while my enemies continually taunt me, says, “Where is this God of yours?” (Psalm 42:3) Which brings me to my next point.

It’s ok to cry. Everybody does it. For centuries, society has depicted crying as a sign of weakness and I implore you to challenge that status quo. David, one of the greatest kings in history, recorded his own bouts with sadness and crying. He wasn’t ashamed to not only do it, but to write about it for other people to see. It’s perfectly normal. We have tear ducts for a reason. Crying is a natural thing that our bodies have been designed to do. Think about babies. When they are born they have the ability to do just a few things completely naturally from birth. Breathing, blinking, and crying. Crying is our earliest form of communication, why would it be weak to use it? Granted, we have learned more ways to communicate and they are by far more effective, but crying is still something we all do and we all should do. Tears are the most purest form of release. We cry when we’re happy, sad, frustrated, amused, you name it, I’m sure someone can think of a time they cried because of it. And after we have released, we feel so much better and often times ready to take over the world. And don’t let anyone shame you out of your Sadness, either. Being Sad doesn’t make you ungrateful, without faith, or depressed. Being Sad is just being Sad.

And my final point is after you’ve had a good cry to release your Sadness, remember who you are and whose you are and get back to being you. Remember that your Sadness is only a season and not a personality trait and find your Happiness again, in your own way at your own pace. If it helps, remember these words from David: “Why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so sad? I will put my hope in God! I will praise him again — my Savior and my God!” (Psalm 42: 11) He had his moment of Sadness, and found his happiness in God again. God has Happiness after Sadness waiting for you, too.