Tears today...

Well, the Beines have had a day of tears today.  It started at 3am with Nick having profuse watery diarrhea again.  Then when we were all up (between 6 and 7am) we began to listen to music that reminded us of my mom, as this is the 2-year anniversary of her leaving us (better put: her birthday in heaven)(It's April 19th here).  Well within about 15 minutes, we were all gathered in the living room crying together as we remembered "grandma."  As I cried, I realized that all the little painful things that I have bound up in my heart needed that soothing cleansing of a good cry.  All of a sudden I was crying because I cannot make my son well, and because I cannot give a home to an orphan whom I've grown to love (through daily prayer, without even having seen her), and then the tears came for all of the injustice in the world and all the ways that we fall short of holiness which leads to so much pain on this journey we call life.  In the end, the tears were also for joy...for the joy of relationship with five "men" whom God has given me as companions for this part of the journey...and mostly for the joy which awaits us in heaven (which is surely far beyond my wildest imagination).