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Post by keita on May 1, 2008 3:04:06 GMT -5
I read this today, and I needed to not just read but "hear" something like that today. I am just sharing it, sometimes I need simple answers to big questions! 
Mommies Never Cry
By Chana Weisberg
"Mommies never cry," my three-year-old announced to me this morning as I was helping her get dressed for nursery school.
"Mommies don't cry?" I repeated to make sure I understood.
"No. Never." She confidently confirmed.
"So what do Mommies do when they get sad?" I asked.
"They don't get sad," she responded. "Mommies are BIG. BIG people know that when they want something, they should just ask their Mommies and they will get it, instead of crying!"
She was referring to the lesson we had read in one of her books, about the futility of crying in anger or frustration and the benefit of articulating one's needs or wants clearly.
But her words also brought to mind an article that a friend had recently emailed me about Newsweek's feature article called, "Happiness—Enough Already" just made me rethink the whole issue of happiness.
Fed by hundreds of self-help books "the happiness movement took off in the 1990s with two legitimate developments: discoveries about the brain activity underlying well-being and the emergence of 'positive psychology.'" But it quickly morphed into a push for ever-greater states of happiness that did not want people to "listen to their hearts" but to rather have them "clinically silenced."
According to Newsweek:
"Although 85 per cent of Americans say they're pretty happy, the happiness industry sends the insistent message that moderate levels of well-being aren't enough: not only can we all be happier but we practically have a duty to be so. What was once considered normal sadness is something to be smothered, even shunned."
Interestingly, new research is finding that being happier is not always better:
"Once a moderate level of happiness is achieved further increases can sometimes be detrimental to income, career success, education and political participation. On a scale from one to ten, where 10 is extremely happy, 8s were more successful than 9s and 10s getting more education and earning more. That probably reflects the fact that people who are somewhat discontent, but not so depressed as to be paralyzed, are more motivated to improve both their own lot and the lot of their community. In contrast, people at the top of the jolliness charts feel no such urgency. If you're totally satisfied with your life and with how things are going in the world, you don't feel very motivated to work for change."
So is sadness positive? Or are we supposed to always try to be happy?
There is a famous saying that although depression is not a sin, it often leads to many sins.
Happiness indeed has many positive benefits, yet experiencing pain when something is not working out will spur us to grow. When a problem is defined, it can be eliminated and as the saying goes, "the knowledge of the disease is half the cure."
There is tremendous inertia when it comes to changing our personalities, and when a person feels pained or saddened, this motivation can push the person to change.
While depression can be destructive, occasional sadness can be beneficial.
On the other hand, depression can paralyze a person and prevent him from solving those very same problems.
But, as Newsweek asserts, while depression can be destructive, occasional sadness can be beneficial, propelling us to do more, to act upon our circumstances and create a change. Sadness can allow us to express our inner emotions in creating intense dialogue with our Creator and in motivating us to bring about self-change.
That's as far as where we can effect change.
But once we have exhausted our abilities and our prayers, perhaps we need to reach the second stage of realizing and accepting that this is from a Higher will, a Will that indeed understands what is best for us—while still allowing ourselves the time and space to reach that acceptance, rather than clinically or artificially imposing it upon ourselves.
So I guess my little profound three-year-old was right all along. If we're BIG enough to realize that all we need to do is ask our Mommy, or our Creator, for the help we need (and big enough to realize that it's for our benefit when this is denied to us)—then maybe there truly is no reason to cry!
But perhaps until we get there, for those of us that aren't quite so "big"--and in order to promote our own self-growth along the way--there's nothing wrong with a little sadness. In fact, it may even be good for you! |
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Post by keita on May 1, 2008 3:10:32 GMT -5
I read this today, and I needed to not just read but "hear" something like that today. I am just sharing it, sometimes I need simple answers to big questions!
Mommies Never Cry
By Chana Weisberg
"Mommies never cry," my three-year-old announced to me this morning as I was helping her get dressed for nursery school.
"Mommies don't cry?" I repeated to make sure I understood.
"No. Never." She confidently confirmed.
"So what do Mommies do when they get sad?" I asked.
"They don't get sad," she responded. "Mommies are BIG. BIG people know that when they want something, they should just ask their Mommies and they will get it, instead of crying!"..........
"Because I'm a woman," she told him.
"I don't understand," he said.
His Mom just hugged him and said, "And you never will."
Later the little boy asked his father, "Why does mother seem to cry for no reason?"
"All women cry for no reason," was all his dad could say.
The little boy grew up and became a man, still wondering why women cry. Finally he put in a call to God. When God got on the phone, he asked, "God, why do women cry so easily?"
God said:
"When I made the woman she had to be special. I made her shoulders strong enough to carry the weight of the world, gentle enough to give comfort. I gave her an inner strength to endure childbirth and the rejection that many times comes from her children. I gave her a hardness that allows her to keep going when everyone else gives up, and take care of her family through sickness and fatigue without complaining. I gave her the sensitivity to love her children under any and all circumstances, even when her child has hurt her very badly. I gave her strength to carry her husband through his faults and fashioned her from his rib to protect his heart. I gave her wisdom to know that a good husband never hurts his wife, but sometimes tests her strengths and her resolve to stand beside him unfalteringly. And finally, I gave her a tear to shed. This is hers exclusively to use whenever it is needed."
"You see my son," said God, "the beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, the figure that she carries, or the way she combs her hair. The beauty of a woman must be seen in her eyes, because that is the doorway to her heart - the place where love resides."
Ah, sis nina,
I know that you know that I know that you know that I know! ;D
Crying Women...........
This is gonna be GOOOOOOD!!! ;D |
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Post by keita on May 1, 2008 3:12:05 GMT -5
(Keita? Did you take my box of kleenex again? ) |
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Post by Jasmine on Jun 16, 2008 11:01:04 GMT -5
I loved this.
I remember when for a whole year, I didn't cry at all.
Now, I ask the Lord, why can't I stop crying..LoL
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Post by nina2 on Oct 14, 2008 15:58:38 GMT -5
And you shall draw water with joy from the wellsprings of salvation.
—Isaiah 12:3
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Post by vin on Oct 14, 2008 23:34:11 GMT -5
I don't cry as much as I used to. I've experienced a lot of pain that goes deeper than tears. Just an ache that doesn't go away. There aren't any tears for that.
But I sit here now remembering times when I did cry. Lying in bed after my husband and gotten done "doin his business" on me. (and yes, I kinda felt like his toilet) Crying while he was in the bathroom. Weeping silently as he lay next to me. Trying not to sniff so I wouldn't get caught. Sometimes I did get caught.
I remember the day I went downstairs in my house after my divorce and the basement was flooded. It had been one thing after another after another. I remember being in my bedroom weeping out loud and yelling at God through my tears and snot, "Whatever you want you TAKE IT! YOU JUST TAKE IT! What do you WANT FROM ME! YOU COME AND GET IT! YOU JUST TAKE IT!" But He didn't come and get it like I thought He should. He didn't take it. He got me to the point that I GAVE IT. He left me in that place of the flood (spiritually) until He got my strong will.
That house was too big and the utilities were way too much and they got turned off several times. I got to where I couldn't make the payments and I eventually lost it.
I cried about that too. I remember crying when I took my brother my computer stand. I cried because with every small piece of furniture I gave away, I felt like I was giving away bits and pieces of myself.
Today I need a plumber because in the house I live in now, when the washing machine drains, the water comes up in the tub and it comes up through the floor under the toilet. But no tears today. Just worship.
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Post by keita on Oct 15, 2008 13:56:39 GMT -5
(Keita? Did you take my box of kleenex again? ) Wasn't me sis. Unless there's snot involved, (YUCK!) I ususally just let my crying rip and don't even try to wipe my tears away. And, at this stage and place in my life, I'm even learning to cry...on and with purpose. |
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Post by nina2 on Oct 24, 2008 23:05:27 GMT -5
- “We possess the ability to move on, let go and look forward with hope, strength and optimism. After we grieve or cry we leave the world of sorrow and move into the world of action, doing whatever possible to create a better tomorrow.”
- “Faith is more than just a mind set. Faith is not merely something inside us, an emotion we experience like joy or satisfaction. Faith reaches out beyond us and transforms the world around us. When we approach the world with faith, it is a power that flows from a deep well within each of us. A power that flows outside ourselves and actually orchestrates the events of our world the way we need them to be.”
And my favorite:
“Trust is when, in times of trouble, you cleave so unshakably to the heavens that you pull them down to earth.”
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Post by keita on Oct 26, 2008 11:30:52 GMT -5
I've heard and read some sisters say: "WOMEN ARE WELLS". "I know the amazing beauty of tears. So do you."
"There is nothing unspiritual about having tears in our eyes as we go through a tough time."
"I'm a crier. Always have been.
I don't always cry when it's appropriate and sometimes I cry when it's not. If that happens in public - if I'm the only one crying, I get embarrassed and feel a little weird and childlike. I am a very emotional person (the tears come much too quickly) and I don't really like that I have that characteristic. Then I think about this scripture and tell myself that God considers all my tears - and all my sorrows - important. And if he is the only one, that's okay. But if God honors each one enough to put it in a bottle and record it, if each tear is that important to him, it follows that my attitude needs to line up with his."I've come to treasure this psalm: Thou tellest my wanderings:
put thou my tears into thy bottle:
are they not in thy book?
(PSALM 56:8 KJV)appreciate this quote, which says of GOD: "I am the rain coming from the dew that causes the grasses to laugh with the joys of life. I call forth tears, the aroma of holy work, I am the yearning for good." and celebrate Wisdom, found in the roots of the branch I've been adopted and grafted into: The Hebrew Talmud says:
"Be very careful if you make a woman cry because GOD counts her tears. Every tear women shed is equivalent of Man's sacrifices in life." |
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