The Bottle

I don't remember exactly what started the tears that day.

We were in a difficult season. The strain between us had touched places in me that were already tender, awakening grief I thought I had tucked away. Child loss changes the landscape of your heart. Sometimes conflict, disappointment, or fear become doorways through which old sorrow quietly returns.

I remember sitting on the edge of my bed, completely undone. There were no eloquent prayers left in me. No wise words. No tidy conclusions to wrap around the pain. I only knew that my heart hurt.

So I picked up my Kindle Scribe and began to sketch.

A tear fell from a closed eye.
A flower bent beneath its own weight.
A bottle slowly filling drop by drop.

And across the page, I wrote the words of Psalm 56:8:

"You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. Are they not in Your book?"

I have always loved that verse, but on that day, I needed it. Grief has a way of making you feel unseen. Misunderstood. Forgotten. It whispers that your tears are excessive, inconvenient, or insignificant. It tells you that you should be "further along" by now—that after enough years, certain losses shouldn't still have the power to undo you.

But God says otherwise.

He keeps count of our wanderings.
He notices the sleepless nights and restless pacing.
He sees the tears cried over a son whose absence still changes the shape of ordinary days.
He sees the tears brought on by broken relationships, disappointment, fear, loneliness, and exhaustion.

Not one escapes His notice.
Not one is wasted.
Not one has been lost.

When I drew the wilted flower, I don't think I realized the hope hidden within it. Wilted is not the same as dead. Bent low is not the same as uprooted. The flower was still there—its stem intact, held in place even as it bowed beneath the weight of sorrow.

Maybe that's what God has done for me all these years.

He has held me when grief bent me low.
He has preserved me when I thought I might break.
He has gathered every tear into hands far more capable of carrying them than my own.

I wish I could tell you that faith prevents the tears.

It doesn't.

What faith does is remind us that we never cry alone.

The God who records each tear is not standing at a distance, taking notes from afar.
He is near to the brokenhearted.
He sits beside us on the edge of the bed.
He remains through the arguments, the anniversaries, the unanswered questions, and the moments when all we can offer Him is the honesty of our pain.

Looking back at this sketch now, I realize it wasn't simply a drawing.

It was an altar.
A weary, trembling act of trust.

A reminder to my own heart that even when life feels as though it is unraveling, God is still collecting what the world cannot hold.

Every tear.
Every prayer.
Every sorrow, safely kept by the One who promises that one day, He Himself will wipe them all away.

Until then, I rest in this truth:

The tears may fall, but they are never forgotten.
Not one has been lost.