Am I allowed to cry?

[Pax_et_Caritas]

Please bear with me, I am afraid this will be a bit long.

Going through a very difficult time in my life (unemployed banker, up to now not even jobs at 1/4 of my former wage available notwithstanding extremely active search, in the meantime market’s meltdown destroys the savings of a lifetime and a portfolio deemed extremely well balanced; with only a once very prudent and robust, but now dwindling cash reserve avoiding total ruin) I have faced the first 7-8 months of unemployment with trust in God and a defiant faith, a “the Lord is my sheperd, I shall not want” attitude.

After the seventh month, and with the markets meltdown in september-october, desperation slowly started creeping in.

I resisted the urge to cry, blaming the urge to my poor faith, and tried to give myself courage day after day. Ask, and it is given, and all that.

But the continuing situation, better said its worsening, gnawed on me, starting to slowly eating me alive, the fight between faith and despair becoming harder every day, the urge to cry stronger and stronger.

A couple of weeks ago, I could not resist anymore: I faced my paint of the Blessed Heart of Jesus and cried, cried my entire soul, cried with no reserve or dignity whatsoever, cried with all the force of the repressed tears, laying bare to Him my entire frailty and even my shame for being unable to have the joyous, glorious, unassailable optimism one who believe in Jesus should, I think, always have.

It has happened a couple of times since, followed by some days of consolation and renewed effort to find a job, and further falls into a fully impotent cry of help.
Last time yesterday night, and I have not recovered yet.

On the one hand, crying does give me some consolation. My cry is also the admission that I cannot do anything, and He can do everything. Is a surrender in weakness, if I am not strong enough to surrender in optimism and faith. I have a feeling that it is a powerful message which I am sending above: that tears, in a way, can do more than optimism.

On the other hand, I feel that I might be doing something very wrong here. People are starving whilst I write, or are being persecuted, and I should cry? A grown man in his forties?

Most of all: Is it a step into the slippery slope of self-pitying?
Should my faith not be strong enough to get up in the morning and warn the world to be very afraid, because I am going, with God’s help, to get a job able to sustain me, and no mistake?

Should I not be a fearless warrior? Should I not see any impulse to give up and cry as the way the Devil tries to weaken me, to push me into a spiral of despair and, in time, depression by allowing me to lower my shield, to contemplate any other possibility than unflinching optimism in complete victory knowing that He is at my side and that if I ask in faith, I will receive?

What should I do? I am rapidly getting to the point where tears will become a more and more frequent experience, and I cannot understand whether this is a salutary surrender, and a powerful prayer; or on the contrary the way I slowly lose my capacity to fight with irresistible force and steely determination.

On the one hand, I think that Jesus wants to see me strong in the face of every adversity, full of faith and defiance in the midst of my crashing little world, joyous in Him in whatever circumstance.

On the other hand, why should I not offer him my tears, and ask him in tears to give me strenght, and to help me because he sees my tears, if I am not strong enough to ask Him to help me because he sees my faith?

Any help is very welcome, God bless you all, and thanks in advance.

Your in a very difficult situation. My only advise is that, while you struggle and try to find a job, be sure to offer up any difficulties that you face. You may already be doing that, or it may have slipped your mind. Be sure to unite your sufferings to Jesus and offer it up in reparation for your past sins and for the conversion of sinners. I think that may help to re-direct your focus a little. Rather than focusing on yourself, your difficulties, and how you should properly react, just accept what you cannot change and offer it up, while you do your best to remedy the situation. It seems like you may be focusing on yourself and the way you are reacting a little too much.

Hang in there. You seem to be doing great in this difficult trial. I was in a somewhat similar trial some years ago, so I know what you are going through. I think you are doing a good job, and I’m sure things will work out.

I will pray for you.

 

[Matrix_Refugee]

Let yourself cry, if only for the stress relief. If you keep it bottled up, you’ll only hurt yourself worse. It’s actually been found that crying is healthy, since it washes out the eyes and gets rid of any dirt or germs that may have gotten in there.

 

[porthos11]

How does one discern sorrow from despair?

Sorrow is sadness. Despair is the giving up of hope. One can be sad yet not lose hope, in which case, there is no despair. We are called to be sorrowful for sins, but never to despair. So clearly, the two are not the same thing. Despair is sinful, but Jesus himself said that just before he died, he was sorrowful unto death.

And I did not mean to make it seem so, I merely sought to point out that doing anything, simply for “stress relief”, could be dangerous. Imagine, crying becoming a prescribed motion, and not the natural avenue God has given for this purpose.

“Oh, dear! I’m quite upset! I think I shall cry, and afterwards, will undoubtedly feel better!”

I have yet to meet or know of any human being who is even capable of making such a silly statement before crying.

It may never happen, but I should hate for such an important action as crying to become clinical, so mechanical.

Crying is clinical, mechanical, and emotional. I see no reason to deny those qualities of the emotional expression.

 

[VivaPadrePio]

Thanks to you all.
There is, in fact, so much material here (along with beautiful witnesses of Christian faith) that I will read it again and again in the next days to carefully absorb all that has been said.
This forum is great, and so are you. Thank you so much.

A couple of words to clarify: my tears are not tears of repentance, nor are they tears of despair: they are, simply put, tears of worry. I have never “lost faith” in the literal term, I feel myself completely unable to think in these terms and was thankfully blessed with a strong religious feeling since the earliest childhood, I cannot remember one day when I did not believe so I cannot even “think” of myself as a non-believer…

What I am beginning to understand, and will try to let sink in in the next days, is that whilst I do must try to maintain an upbeat spirit, and whilst I do must make a daily effort not to worry about the future knowing that I am in His hands; on the other hand, I must not push this to the limit of a suffocating repression of strong feelings of worry but must, comes to that, make the most of my weakness and donate to Him my tears, as I donate to him my optimism in good days.

I have also started some “exercises”, and ask myself every day whether I’d prefer to be successful and with a couple of millions on the bank, but without an eye, or both; or without a leg or both, or a hand or both; or having lost my parents in a young age, or having been born in a dysfunctional family from parents who don’t love me, etc.

One makes this exercise a couple of minutes and soon counts his blessings, and feels pretty well-off…
On good days, that is…

Today is a good day, and in good days I see things a bit differently: if I don’t need to sell the shares they’ll come up again some day (I have a lot of time), I’ll find through Jesus’s grace and at the time He has appointed a new job in mine or in a different industry and this will teach me humility if at a fraction of the old wage, and heartfelt thanksgiving if at a wage halfway comparable to the old days.

I will give a new meaning to words like “solidarity”, “generosity” and “compassion”; words which I thought I knew, but for which I have now simply been given a new frame of reference. They have, now, truly a new meaning.

I will take whatever blessing will come to me in the future in a completely different way: as something donated, rather than earned.
Then this I now know: that I cannot “earn” as a mechanical consequence of work. Rather, I offer my work, and I receive a blessing, freely donated and never “due”.

Other things I have learned, more intimate in nature and still, I hope, not to be forgotten.

One day, on my deathbed, I will very probably look back at these months. And I truly hope that I will be able to say that it was, as it has been so beautifully said, “my finest hour”.
Tears and all.

You are a great help, and a great blessing.
Thank you so much again.

 

[CradleCath]

Well here we are, twenty years later. My husband is a deacon, ordained to the Diaconate of Ruthenian Archeparchy of Pittsburgh in 2003 under Metropolitan Basil. Here he is at the Enthronement of Metropolitan Basil – he is in the center towards the back in black – looks like Santa Clause. byzcath.org/news/2002/met-basil/2002-0709-Enthronment-Basil.htm We serve the Melkite Eparcy of Newton here in Birmingham. We actually live in Irondale - which I think is hilarioius - I mean, going from Steubenville to Irondale. Our Church is located in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Birmingham, Alabama, but we are not under Bishop Baker – who everyone here is so excited to have, he is just wonderful! (Have I got you confused yet? Sometimes I stay that way working with three very different, yet very much the same Churches.) chnetwork.org/forums/forum11/2326.html

We must lean on God’s understanding and not our own, be at peace!

And yet another story. My brother graduated from college in '63 & was immediately drafted. He served in Vietnam, came home with some bad memories, but alive, & was hired by an advertising agency that was young & excited. (His major was journalism with an advertising emphasis.) He was the “golden boy” at the agency & made Vice President within a couple of years. He wasn’t even 30 yrs. old then.

I don’t know how many of you really know the Ad business, but at that time…in the late 60’s…it was high stress & lots of liquor. Most of the ad people kept a bottle in their desk drawer. My brother began to drink…not heavily, at all, in the beginning. He spent about 15 yrs. there, bought stock in the company, he was married with two children & a beautiful home in the “right part of town”. With no warning, the partners who owned the company sold it, the new owners kept many of the people who’d been there for years, including my brother, but they ran the agency into the ground within two years. My brother’s stock was pretty much worthless & he was out of a job for over a year. His wife didn’t work & wouldn’t work.

He didn’t give up, but began to drink more. Then an advertising friend offered to put up the money for a business if my
brother would run it. IOW., one paid with money…the other with work. It took off quickly & he was soon able to match the other persons financial contribution. They incorporated & he spent the next years running his own agency & drinking. His marriage ended. He was a working alcoholic, & to look at him, you’d never know it. I’ve never quite seen anything like it…the more he drank, the more precise his speech became, I’ve never seen him stagger, he was never caught drinking & driving…though he did it for years.

He left the Church, married again, and she was a wonderful woman. He began drinking during working hours. As one of our mutual friends told me. “He was an advertising genuis…when he wasn’t drinking. But, he was always drinking.” He finally lost everything, his second wife, his home & his health & all of his savings. The doctors diagnosed him with both prostate cancer & advanced cirhosis & all of this happened within 6 months. He hit bottom, had to live with us & I think that he was suicidal at that time. The only condition we put on his living in our home (he had no money for rent) was no liquor. He had gone through withdrawal when he was in the hospital & faced the fact that he was an alcoholic. He mostly sat in a chair for the next 6 months & he cried. I cried with him.

Slowly but surely, he pulled himself together & began building a new life. After 6 months he found a job in a convenience store, Sold his car for $500. cash & moved into a small, run-down apartment. This man who had lived in the most prestigious of neighborhoods, driven a Porshce & traveled the world, had nothing material left. This man, who had lived in the topsy-turvy, exciting world of advertising…now sells shoes at a local department store & has done so for 8 years… &, **through the grace of God **is happier than I’ve ever seen him. He hasn’t had a drink in 8 years. He walks to work every morning, really likes his co-workers & his customers. Though the rest of our brothers & sisters have abandoned him, (they thought he was the best thing since sliced bread while he was wealthy & drinking) he & I have dinner together every Thurs. night, followed by grocery shopping. He can walk almost everywhere, has already outlived the life expectancy that the doctors gave him 8 years ago, but carrying groceries home while walking is something that I can spare him.

He is at peace with himself & the world around him & you should hear his laugh. It is what many call a “belly laugh” & I hadn’t heard that since he left for Vietnam in the 60’s. Sometimes, when we won’t go to our knees, God knocks us to our knees. He loves us too much to watch us destroy ourselves & lose our future in heaven… without a fight. Please join me in my prayers that my brother will now return to the Church…and to the OP., I’m in no way suggesting that you might be on the wrong path because your words show your love of God. I’m just telling you that He has a way of making where you are right now…the best place in the world, if you’ll let Him.

 

[Pani_Rose]

And yet another story. My brother graduated from college in '63 & was immediately drafted. He served in Vietnam, came home with some bad memories, but alive, & was hired by an advertising agency that was young & excited. (His major was journalism with an advertising emphasis.) He was the “golden boy” at the agency & made Vice President within a couple of years. He wasn’t even 30 yrs. old then.

I don’t know how many of you really know the Ad business, but at that time…in the late 60’s…it was high stress & lots of liquor. Most of the ad people kept a bottle in their desk drawer. My brother began to drink…not heavily, at all, in the beginning. He spent about 15 yrs. there, bought stock in the company, he was married with two children & a beautiful home in the “right part of town”. With no warning, the partners who owned the company sold it, the new owners kept many of the people who’d been there for years, including my brother, but they ran the agency into the ground within two years. My brother’s stock was pretty much worthless & he was out of a job for over a year. His wife didn’t work & wouldn’t work.

He didn’t give up, but began to drink more. Then an advertising friend offered to put up the money for a business if my
brother would run it. IOW., one paid with money…the other with work. It took off quickly & he was soon able to match the other persons financial contribution. They incorporated & he spent the next years running his own agency & drinking. His marriage ended. He was a working alcoholic, & to look at him, you’d never know it. I’ve never quite seen anything like it…the more he drank, the more precise his speech became, I’ve never seen him stagger, he was never caught drinking & driving…though he did it for years.

He left the Church, married again, and she was a wonderful woman. He began drinking during working hours. As one of our mutual friends told me. “He was an advertising genuis…when he wasn’t drinking. But, he was always drinking.” He finally lost everything, his second wife, his home & his health & all of his savings. The doctors diagnosed him with both prostate cancer & advanced cirhosis & all of this happened within 6 months. He hit bottom, had to live with us & I think that he was suicidal at that time. The only condition we put on his living in our home (he had no money for rent) was no liquor. He had gone through withdrawal when he was in the hospital & faced the fact that he was an alcoholic. He mostly sat in a chair for the next 6 months & he cried. I cried with him.

Slowly but surely, he pulled himself together & began building a new life. After 6 months he found a job in a convenience store, Sold his car for $500. cash & moved into a small, run-down apartment. This man who had lived in the most prestigious of neighborhoods, driven a Porshce & traveled the world, had nothing material left. This man, who had lived in the topsy-turvy, exciting world of advertising…now sells shoes at a local department store & has done so for 8 years… &, **through the grace of God **is happier than I’ve ever seen him. He hasn’t had a drink in 8 years. He walks to work every morning, really likes his co-workers & his customers. Though the rest of our brothers & sisters have abandoned him, (they thought he was the best thing since sliced bread while he was wealthy & drinking) he & I have dinner together every Thurs. night, followed by grocery shopping. He can walk almost everywhere, has already outlived the life expectancy that the doctors gave him 8 years ago, but carrying groceries home while walking is something that I can spare him.

He is at peace with himself & the world around him & you should hear his laugh. It is what many call a “belly laugh” & I hadn’t heard that since he left for Vietnam in the 60’s. Sometimes, when we won’t go to our knees, God knocks us to our knees. He loves us too much to watch us destroy ourselves & lose our future in heaven… without a fight. Please join me in my prayers that my brother will now return to the Church…and to the OP., I’m in no way suggesting that you might be on the wrong path because your words show your love of God. I’m just telling you that He has a way of making where you are right now…the best place in the world, if you’ll let Him.

With TEARS, thank you for sharing such an awesome mystery of God’s grace and mercy in your brothers life and yours too, as you are there. God bless you all!

 

[CradleCath]

With TEARS, thank you for sharing such an awesome mystery of God’s grace and mercy in your brothers life and yours too, as you are there. God bless you all!

Thank you, Pani Rose. I have never been prouder of my brother than I am now. It takes genuine character to pull oneself out of the place he was in. That & his love of God & his children. (They have stood by him through all of this). I hope that our other siblings will realize that though it may seem like he’s “down & out”, he is truly a total winner!!

 

[Lainey63]

You are not alone…there are so many of us in the same position as you. I’ve been a single parent all my adult life and money has been scarce a large majority of the time. A few things that have helped me is being grateful to God for what I have no matter how small. Living one day at a time…God provides for me and my family what we need for the day no more no less. And also swallowing my pride and asking for help. Look for resources in the churches and the community…they there for those who need them and it sounds like you need them. I’ve also found that being completely honest with God is quite helpful…I do tell him this is so hard for me at times and I’m scared and worried… and I don’t see at all how things will work out…but then I remember all I need is the faith of a mustard seed and its amazing- things always work out. When one door closes another one does open…right now you’re in the hallway and that’s the hardest part. You didn’t say that you have a family…is it possible that God is calling you to religious life or a completely different line of work that you will love.:hug1: I always try to do my little part so God can & will do his big part. Also crying is allowed in my book-I think you will gain compassion when someone else is hurting and going through a similar situation as yourself.

 

[Pani_Rose]

Lainy your sharing is wonderful. You give an awesome testimony for our Lord. So many have on here. Your statement about priesthood reminds me for Fr. Corapi

 

[twb1621]

To the OP,
In the past, after my very early years of financial struggle beginning as a father at age 18, I established over time a comfortable life for myself. I got “cocky” with my status and fed an ego based on authority, control and so on, working in many aspects and levels of law enforcement, and as a business owner, professional investigator and a trainer of investigators and of protection personnel (Body guards). In fact I had a team of bodyguards, fugitive recovery personnel and many investigators employed on my payroll in my agency at that time. Went on cruises whenever I wanted and bought new cars about every 12 to 18 months, all the good stuff money gets you. I lived several hours away from my now grown daughters and had been separated from my faith for a long time. One morning In March 2001 (march 19th, 2001 to be exact, my daughter Meghan’s birthday) I received a call from a police officer I trained as a rookie many years earlier who became familiar with all my family. Too make a long story short, he told me on the phone how my Daughter Meg had been fatally shot, shot three times in the back trying to run from her ex-husband of two years. How he laid hiding in wait for her to return to her apartment on her birthday and took her life the same date of her birth.

After time had passed and I had pulled myself back together and learned to live with the lose of my daughter, I left my profession and began questioning seriously what if anything life was about. I realized it had nothing to do with worldly success or materialism because it truly meant nothing at all. I began a professional investigation into the history of Christianity and the many “Christian churches” to see if it all really was about God and if so which Christian Faith was in fact the true Church of Christ. Here I am today trying to provide direction for those seeking the Truth. Through all this I was amazed at what I learned and continue to learn and ashamed of myself for not seeking sooner. We control nothing but the choices we make and the direction we choose. Nothing should ever be more important or a higher priority than a relationship with God and at times things happen good and bad because we live in a world that is dictated by the choices of all man good and bad alike. If we do not hold God dear in our lives, we live at the discretions of man alone.

 

[Lainey63]

Lainy your sharing is wonderful. You give an awesome testimony for our Lord. So many have on here. Your statement about priesthood reminds me for Fr. Corapi

Thanks Pani Rose I wrote that with the intention of trying to help someone else…but shortly after I wrote that and I was going to bed my gratitude increased by leaps & bounds…I guess I had to be reminded just how much God cares and does for me and my family and just how sweet, thoughtful and kind He is to me and my family…sometimes we are just amazed. But there are times I still have to hear from my kids…“Mom you know God will help us through this…what are you freakin out for…and if it doesn’t turn out the way you think it should…then that’s His will and He has something better for us:blush: :doh2: .”

 

[ConservativeOne]

Wow, do you sound like me ! (Except I’m not a banker but I’m having my share of financial / work / life difficulties…all at once.) Being told that everyone is going through it - does not help.

But I’m a crier…and I do cry…sometimes even in Church where I’m ashamed that others might see. Sure, it’s self pity. And, what’s more - God already knows what’s going on in my life and my heart. But I think hearing us come to Him - with our tears - asking for His Help…surely, that must touch God’s Heart.

Remember, God created us. He gave us even the capacity and the tears we cry. I don’t think self-pity is a sin. It may be annoying (I know I am). But God has Infinite Patience - and only He has the answer to my prayers - be it a job or health or peace of soul. You’re not only allowed to cry but remember the words, “ask and you shall receive”…It doesn’t say you have to be smiling when you ask.

 

[twb1621]

Wow, do you sound like me ! (Except I’m not a banker but I’m having my share of financial / work / life difficulties…all at once.) Being told that everyone is going through it - does not help.

But I’m a crier…and I do cry…sometimes even in Church where I’m ashamed that others might see. Sure, it’s self pity. And, what’s more - God already knows what’s going on in my life and my heart. But I think hearing us come to Him - with our tears - asking for His Help…surely, that must touch God’s Heart.

Remember, God created us. He gave us even the capacity and the tears we cry. I don’t think self-pity is a sin. It may be annoying (I know I am). But God has Infinite Patience - and only He has the answer to my prayers - be it a job or health or peace of soul. You’re not only allowed to cry but remember the words, “ask and you shall receive”…It doesn’t say you have to be smiling when you ask.

you can consider it this way. Crying is an expression of emotions and many people cried including Jesus during the life of Jesus while on earth. Some came to Him in tears asking for His intersession which He granted.

 

[CradleCath]

you can consider it this way. Crying is an expression of emotions and many people cried including Jesus during the life of Jesus while on earth. Some came to Him in tears asking for His intersession which He granted.

I think that Christ Himself cried in the Mount of Olives when He
prayed that this cross be taken away from Him.

 

[RubyT]

Crying has a way of shedding flesh and revealing spirit. God has His plan for you. You need only have confidence in the powerful Love our Lord has for you. Give up the confidence you had in yourself. Everything you ever had came from God to begin with and losing it sets us on a much more gratifying journey. The tribulations of losing ourselves to reveal our spirit can be painful, painful enough to weep. Painful enough to sob uncontrollably.

This may seem like a bad thing at this moment but soon I am sure you will see a brighter light. God has His reason for this tribulation, you need only to have patience until it is made known to you. God loves you so very much, more than you can possibly fathom. These words I type are coming to me spontaneously as if my hands do not even type them. I began this post not knowing what to say to help you and these words appeared. Hold strong your faith and make our Lovingkind Lord your rock. Listen to that audible voice when it comes.

Luke 22:35 And He said to them, “When I sent you out without purse and bag and sandals, you did not lack anything, did you?” And they said* No*, nothing.

My friend I cry all the time.
I cry uncontrollably when I pray the Rosary.
I cry in church after receiving the Eucharist. Everyone looks at me weird but I can’t help it.
My tears release me from the bonds of flesh (wordly desires). My tears provide a resource for God to allow His mercy upon me. They are not tears of joy or tears of sorrow but rather tears of reverence. Do not worry about your tears, they have a purpose. As a man thinks, so is he.

 

[RubyT]

Thanks to you all.
There is, in fact, so much material here (along with beautiful witnesses of Christian faith) that I will read it again and again in the next days to carefully absorb all that has been said.
This forum is great, and so are you. Thank you so much.

A couple of words to clarify: my tears are not tears of repentance, nor are they tears of despair: they are, simply put, tears of worry. I have never “lost faith” in the literal term, I feel myself completely unable to think in these terms and was thankfully blessed with a strong religious feeling since the earliest childhood, I cannot remember one day when I did not believe so I cannot even “think” of myself as a non-believer…

What I am beginning to understand, and will try to let sink in in the next days, is that whilst I do must try to maintain an upbeat spirit, and whilst I do must make a daily effort not to worry about the future knowing that I am in His hands; on the other hand, I must not push this to the limit of a suffocating repression of strong feelings of worry but must, comes to that, make the most of my weakness and donate to Him my tears, as I donate to him my optimism in good days.

I have also started some “exercises”, and ask myself every day whether I’d prefer to be successful and with a couple of millions on the bank, but without an eye, or both; or without a leg or both, or a hand or both; or having lost my parents in a young age, or having been born in a dysfunctional family from parents who don’t love me, etc.

One makes this exercise a couple of minutes and soon counts his blessings, and feels pretty well-off…
On good days, that is…

Today is a good day, and in good days I see things a bit differently: if I don’t need to sell the shares they’ll come up again some day (I have a lot of time), I’ll find through Jesus’s grace and at the time He has appointed a new job in mine or in a different industry and this will teach me humility if at a fraction of the old wage, and heartfelt thanksgiving if at a wage halfway comparable to the old days.

I will give a new meaning to words like “solidarity”, “generosity” and “compassion”; words which I thought I knew, but for which I have now simply been given a new frame of reference. They have, now, truly a new meaning.

I will take whatever blessing will come to me in the future in a completely different way: as something donated, rather than earned.
Then this I now know: that I cannot “earn” as a mechanical consequence of work. Rather, I offer my work, and I receive a blessing, freely donated and never “due”.

Other things I have learned, more intimate in nature and still, I hope, not to be forgotten.

One day, on my deathbed, I will very probably look back at these months. And I truly hope that I will be able to say that it was, as it has been so beautifully said, “my finest hour”.
Tears and all.

You are a great help, and a great blessing.
Thank you so much again.

That is so beautiful and now you have me crying. :bighanky:
Seems that your light is shining brighter already.

 

[ConservativeOne]

Dear VivaPadrePio -
The fact that this entered my mailbox signals that I must have entered a reply. But my own emotional upheaval is keeping me from recalling having done so.

I, too, am in the same situation, if not worse. Job-wise, financially, personal issues - I won’t detail everything - But I weep - regularly, including as I type this. Are we allowed to cry? Didn’t God give us tears? Maybe, we’re not supposed to complain or overdo on the tears - (which I’m beginning to do) - but while I can’t speak for God, I don’t think He’s angry with us as much as waiting for us to come to Him. I did. On Thanksgiving - I went in hopes that the Church doors would be open, which they were - and I was grateful the Church was empty - so that I could weep openly before Him. I can’t do that in front of people.

Everyone says it’s Christmas that makes the situation worse. But once Christmas is past - the bills, the problems, the issues are still here. I was taught you’re not supposed to pray for money. But I’m crashing in more ways than one. I’m alone - with friends and family turning away - Let’s face it - people get tired of the tears. But I don’t think God does.
I hear you, and I understand.

 

[michael_quinlan]

Crying is actually a sign of acceptance of a situation and being made open to where God is leading you next.

 

[RubyT]

Crying is actually a sign of acceptance of a situation and being made open to where God is leading you next.

 

[Monica4316]

Here’s my advice…

if you feel like crying, then cry. Because this sometimes does draw us closer to God, by helping us see that we need Him and it helps us open up to Him.

If you’re concerned that it’s wrong because there are people who are suffering more, so you feel selfish, - simply pray for these people! Sometimes I just pray for a person who is “suffering the most right now” in the world…

go out and help them…

but it’s not wrong to cry… and it sounds like you’re in a really tough situation, and God understands.

Just make sure to not give in to despair or hopelessness ever. The remedy for this is trusting God… just trust Him…

Sometimes I look back on the times in my life when I felt really worried and upset about something and cried to God… and that just helps me see that He was always with me and was always my Best Friend and that encourages me to trust and love Him more…

God bless