To My Friend, Mike

I know I already made a blog post today, but then I went to my friend, Mike's, blog and read one of his posts.  I had a comment all typed up and it wound up being rather long, so I asked if he would mind me sharing his post, with my reply on my blog and he said that that was fine....

Mike's Blog Post

And here is my reply:

Sometimes crying shows strength. The man is supposed to be the example for the woman. If her man always holds back his tears and refuses to let them show, she may feel as though she needs to do the same.
Throughout the Bible, men have cried…and not just because of deaths. Jacob cried when he was reunited with his son, I believe Jacob and Esau cried when they saw each other and were making peace, the father of the prodigal son cried when he saw his son…so much crying…all by men… If God didn’t want people (male and female) to cry, he wouldn’t have made people designed to cry.
When a person is born…usually, the first thing they do after taking a breath, is cry. When you fall down, you cry. When you laugh too hard, you cry. When you suffer a painful break up, you cry. When you grow older, when you’re extremely happy, you cry. If you’re moved emotionally at all, you cry. Crying is good and healthy and something that is perfectly okay for men, women, boys, girls, babies, teens, preteens, and any other humans I may have left out to do.
God KEEPS your tears. He keeps them. In a bottle…and in a book. Psalm 56:8– “Thou tellest my wanderings: put thou my tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy book?” That wasn’t just for the writer of that psalm…that was for everyone. Including men. Which includes you.
And besides all of THAT, there are plenty of healthy reasons to cry. When you cry, it releases proteins that can cause bad moods or health issues…and I know what I’m talking about, I wrote a whole essay on it my Sophomore year of highschool. If you don’t want to cry around people, that’s fine and completely understandable…but don’t force yourself not to cry or feel weak for doing so…because it’s fine. Biblically and…professionally? No, that’s not the word I mean, but you understand what I mean, I hope.
I’m very much a hypocrite for saying this, because I force myself not to cry a lot of the time…I first remember doing that when I was four…so it’s something I need to remember too. Crying is a-okay.

~Katie