Crying For Guys

What an emotional sermon on Sunday!

Are we not Blessed to be able to display our emotions so openly before God! Dictionary.com says there are 14 synonyms for Cry - wail, keen, moan, sob, bawl, whimper, yowl, clamour, vociferate, exclaim, scream, shout, bellow and roar and we have all used these as expressions in our daily lives for different reasons – I wailed when the Springboks lost, I sobbed when my Gran died, screamed when I got hurt – but why don’t we cry more often – Guys?

Often we may be embarrassed or we remember that an unwritten rule that if you cry you’re a sissy or sometimes we feel that we just want to be tough – cowboys don’t cry! You know I found out early in my teens that girls loved a guy who showed his feelings, so when a girl would come to me for advice on (mostly puppy love) issues, I would cry with them and they thought I was the greatest….I found early on too that after a good cry (after a sad movie or a difficult day) I felt a lot better and calmer about myself and my surroundings.

But what brought me to cry, was it the poignant message or the poor dog left without it’s mother etc – No – for me it was the feeling I got that there was a great moral to the story – somebody did something bad and he/she stood up for it, fought for it and was eventually forgiven and/or went to a better place. That did it for me…

On Sunday, John’s message about forgiveness brought many tears to my eyes (I had to be careful I didn’t wail or bawl) because of the simple forgiveness by Jesus of a sinner. The story struck a chord which was reinforced later during Starting Point class as our task for next week is to reconnect with someone. For me this may mean forgiving this individual and a lot of tears – but if John can do it so can I.

Luke 6:37 “….Forgive, and you will be forgiven.”

God Bless
Anton Dinkelmann

(26/06/07)