When pastors weep, the tears are not their own. They weep for their people, their community, their world.

When pastors weep, they hold their own pain, and all the pain they lovingly witness as they hold space for others in pain.

I wanted not to cry. It is easier to push it all down and block it all out. But my heart needs me to cry. And if I do not cry for them, I wonder who will.

Sometimes being a pastor means being the one who will let your body be wracked with grief for a people. To be like our Christ, offering ourselves up as a willing and holy servant.

And today my servant work is to do the horribly hard work of sitting in sorrow and letting the tears fall every time they come.

And they come in waves. This is my labor. Breathing through the waves of sorrow and letting it be. Because we do not have to reframe sorrow. It is beautiful and sacred as it is.

So weep pastor. And let the labor of holding space and grief be your sacred servant work. And I will weep with you.