Lessons from a Baby: Crying

God often uses others to teach us, and I think he especially loves to teach us through babies.  Maybe because "The kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these".  Maybe because they haven't had the years of building habits and self-defensive layers that the rest of us have.  Babies give us a window into a time when we didn't know many of the things that we know now, and when we knew some things that we have since forgotten in the business of life.

Crying.

Babies cry.  This we all know.  Crying is a baby's way of communication.  Since babies can't speak, and don't even have words with which to understand their experiences, they communicate through emotion.  This can be frustrating for caregivers, especially when it is hard to find out what is wrong, or when it seems that nothing is wrong, and yet the baby continues to cry.  One approach that some parents take to cope with a baby that constantly cries is called the "cry it out" method, in which parents (once the baby's needs are taken care of) just lets the baby cry until they stop or fall asleep.  And this approach does in fact seem to work - studies have shown that babies who are left to "cry it out" spend less time crying than babies who are not.  However, this approach is discouraged by healthcare specialists, for an interesting reason.  These babies cry less because they have learned that no one will come to help them when they cry.  Why communicate that you need help, or just need someone to hold you, if you know that no one will?

I often remind myself of this when I begin to get frustrated because my baby is crying.  Instead of grumbling that once again I am interrupted halfway through what I am doing, or starting to cry myself because I just wanted some sleep, I remind myself to be thankful.  Thankful that my little boy knows that I am here for him.  Thankful that he knows that he will be heard and held and cared for.

I believe that this ties dramatically into our lives as adults too.  As we grow up, we stop crying so much.  We learn words to express ourselves.  We don't have to cry because we are hungry or because we pooped our pants.  (Although, to be honest, I might still cry if I pooped my pants.)  We can explain our needs to others, and we learn to fulfill many of our needs for ourselves.  However, as we learn to speak the language of words and logic, we start to forget the language of emotion.  Then, when we are faced with something that we don't have words for, that we don't understand, or that just feels wrong, we don't know what to do.  Someone very dear to us dies.  We lose a friendship.  We aren't understood by the people around us.  We feel restless, lonely, adrift, brokenhearted.  We feel a deep need to communicate this, but we have forgotten how to cry.

Perhaps one reason we have forgotten how to cry is that we don't really believe that there is someone who will hear us.

The Psalms is the Bible's book of prayers.  There are many different kinds of psalms, but the most common kind is the lament: A prayer that cries out to God, not with logic, but with emotion.  Perhaps there are so many laments in the psalms to remind us that we can cry out to God.  Cry about the loneliness.  Cry about the loss.  Cry about our broken and hurting world.  There is someone who hears us.  We are not alone.