Dancing, Commercials and Floodgates

I remember being a big crybaby when I was little. My heart was on my sleeve: my feelings would get hurt over the littlest of things, my conscience was easily pricked, I moralized everything, was very intent on showing fairness and sharing (really....I still catch myself dividing the M&Ms evenly in my mouth), I hated saying goodbye and would nearly make myself sick with crying, or others sick with my clinging to them!! Then, one day, a friend told me how it hurt to see me cry so much. So...because I liked this friend mostly for friendship's sake (plus--I won't lie to you--I was about 13 years old and this friend was a REALLY cute 12 year old boy), I promised I would practice some self control and cut out the crying.

And
for a good 20 years or so I have not been too very weepy.

But then,
I had my fourth child.
And through him, God opened the floodgates of my heart once again.
Welllllllll...to be fair,
He re-opened the floodgates of my tear ducts.
Now.
I.
gush.:

I cry when I hear of someone going to Jerusalem, the Jordan, Gethsemane, Ephesus.
I cry when I watch Barbie movies with the girls (those sweet boys of mine usually suffer through it, bless them).
I cry when someone goes forward in church for prayer.
I cry when someone is baptized.
I cry when I see abounding joy!
I cry at Disney commercials.

I do!!!
And I know that
if I ever meet Cinderella, I will probably sit down and bawl!

Songs...commercials...laughter...jokes...family trips (ANYbody's family
trips)...family get-togethers(see previous parenthesis)...graveyards...green
fields...mists dancing with the wind...the intricacies
of snowflakes...baby cows standing beside their mommas...a fog
rolling in...the glow of morning sunlight in my living room...
those unconquerable piles of laundry...
a single line
of cars on a sunny day all with their headlights on...the
wail of a siren...the good news of a healing...the tears of my children...the pure
and beautiful laughter of their joy...
I.
CRY.

I know that God says that there will be no tears in Heaven. I am thinking that those tears must mean tears of sorrow, because if the open flow of my heart is any indication, there will most certainly be tears from me in Heaven. More times than not, my tears are from delight; from the inability to voice the joy and complete happiness that comes from the Spirit of God moving through the rooms of my heart, stirring up visions of Home, of being a part of Abraham, of Israel, a fulfillment to the promise of His salvation. I see it in this world where He speaks of His love to us through the beautiful and sad, the exciting and mundane, in His word and His people, in nature and in the cosmos.

His joy. His love. His faithfulness.
It makes me want to sing!
to laugh
and
dance!

But usually, when my spirit meets His,
it weeps with thankfulness,
inexpressible jubilation and
contentment.

Maybe, after a few thousand years have passed, once my awe and gratefulness have allowed me to move off of my face, and then off of my knees, and my eyes have cleared themselves of the tears so I can see enough not to step on His toes, I will be able to dance with Him!!! I look forward to all of it:



...and to sharing it with so many others whose bliss and elation have kept them pressing on toward the Savior:

Kimyal New Testament launch in Indonesia from United Bible Societies on Vimeo.