Are Tears Prayers?

Today I read a comment that was posted on My Daily Bread in which someone having gone through some struggles mentioned learning that tears were prayers to God. Hmmmm.... I had never heard that before, but I immediately wanted to know if that was true. I wanted to know if it was biblical. It sounded true. It made sense. I mean I know that when we don’t know what to say the Holy Spirit intercedes for us and takes our groaning to God. Isn’t our crying and tears a form of groaning? I really wanted to know more. The first place I looked was on the Topical Bible website (great site). I looked at all of the scriptures that had to do with tears, but it wasn’t quite working for me. I guess I was looking for something that clearly said, "tears are prayers."

After that search didn’t pan out so well I went online and did some reading. Everything kept bringing me back to one scripture. It was Psalms 56:8.

The NKJV reads:
You number my wandering;
Put my tears into Your bottle;
Are they not in Your book?

This was still not realy clear enough for me, so I tried other versions of this verse. The NLT version finally did it for me. Here is what it says:
You keep track of all my sorrows.
You have collected all my tears in Your bottle.
You have recorded each one in Your book.

As I reflected on this translation of the verse I could see that our tears do matter to God. Through our tears we are able to communicate our sorrows to God. Isn’t that prayer? God even collects our tears and records them in His book. That is a pretty good argument for tears being a form of prayer.

I guess as I think about it, my tears and prayers always go together. I know that when I am hurting I cry out to the amazing, wonderful, almighty God of this world. I know that He hears my prayers and will not forsake me. My prayer as I reflect on tears is that God will take every tear shed of both believers and nonbelievers and use those tears to draw them near to Him. We are so blessed that God cares and is watching over us through both good times and bad.

God be with you and bless you always! Amen