Today's Daily Lesson is from Psalm 56 verse 8:
8 You have noted my lamentation;
put my tears into your bottle;
are they not recorded in your book?
There was a custom in the ancient world that people mourning the death of a loved one would bottle their tears and then go and pour out their tears on the tomb's stone. This was a healing ritual for the bereaved -- a way of passage through the journey of grief.
When the psalmist says God places our tears into His bottle he affirms how precious our grief is to God. God does not dismiss our tears or discount our lamentation. God does not tell us to, "Get over it," or "Quit crying." God is not afraid of our grief. Our pain and fragility do not repulse God. God let's us cry. God is gentle with our tears. God puts them in His bottle, a keepsake from life's hard way, a gift to be treasured and then given to us when the journey is through.
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