Mothers know tears. Childbirth? Tears, along with much wailing. Tears when they cut their first tooth, your tears and theirs. Tears when they start kindergarten, followed by sighs of relief, but mother doesn’t talk about it, except to other mothers. Tears when the child plays his or her first tee-ball game, but shouts of joy when the child hits his first ball.
Tears when she graduates from kindergarten, mixed with joy. Then all too soon, Mother is crying tears of joy at high school graduation mixed with tears knowing the child is not her baby anymore.
Tears when her children go off to college. Tears when the baby graduates from college and moves off to get his first job. Or tears when he skips college and goes to work.
Sowing in tears. Planting and then watering the plants with your tears. Gardening, planting, hoeing, weeding, fertilizing, and watering are all hard work—hard work that is required to have a good harvest. Mothering is hard work.
We plant into our babies all that is within us, then water with our tears. We think we’re being too sentimental, too emotional, but God is using the tears to water what we planted in our children. We should look at our children with God’s eyes. Our children don’t belong to us anyway, they belong to God. He entrusted them to us to rear in His ways and lead them in the way they should go.
We have to see the harvest by faith, with the eyes of our heart and not with our natural eyes. The harvest you see by faith may not look like the seed you thought you were planting, but when it is fully grown, you’ll know that God gave you the harvest He had in store for you all along. One day we’ll look up from our hard work and see the harvest in our children.
“Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy. Those who go out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy.” Psalm 126:5-6 NIV.
Then it will be time for songs of joy.