No Tears Left

I have grown weary with my crying;
my throat is inflamed;
my eyes have failed from looking for my God.
– Psalm 69:4

I should’ve been there but I couldn’t make it.

They’d invited me to offer a prayer for and with the families who’d lost their loved ones. And I’d agreed.

But then, when the time came, I couldn’t find the well.

Or maybe I could, but it was dry.

My tears had been cried out. I’d “grown weary with my crying” as the psalmist says, and “my eyes [had] failed from looking for my God.”

My inner circle knows how weary I’ve become of looking at my messages. Because every time I do, my heart breaks. The people I serve and love are seeking help—sponsors, mostly, for immigrants in detention who are at the brink of death. My heart breaks when I read their stories. My heart breaks again when I don’t have an immediate solution, or don’t have a great way of tracking the offers of help that come in. God is in the help offered, but sometimes I cannot find the offers because I don’t have time to organize it.

With no tears left, I didn’t know how to give the prayer that night.

But where my well is dry, I have confidence that someone else has a drop left to give.

That drop is God incarnate, Word made flesh, God upon God, light from light, help in the very time of trial.

It’s not all up to me. Or to you, either. Instead: it’s up to us.

Prayer
God, may we draw on your abundance even when the well has run dry. May our neighbors be just that. Amen.

About the Author
Kaji Douša is the Senior Pastor of The Park Avenue Christian Church, a congregation of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and the United Church of Christ, in New York City.