At first glance, the expression "brings a tear to my eye" gives the impression that something has been sad or grief-inducing enough to make one cry. While the idiom can refer to a negative situation or an experience that is moving enough to cause crying, the phrase also can describe something so wonderful and outstanding that it stirs a person's emotions to the point of joyful tears or, at least, to expressing deep pleasure of soul.
Years back, when one of my brothers frequented the phrase, he often meant the latter. I remember him using the expression one time in particular, when he and his young family went with our family to an International Plowing Match, held locally. He had heard of a unique feature happening every year at the rural expo, and was excited to see for himself the phenomenon of four Bobcat skid-steer loaders performing a square dance. When asked later about his impression of the skid-steer maneuvers, he claimed it was enough to "bring a tear to his eye".
I suppose there are other things that move him to tears these days, metaphorically speaking. Perhaps it's when the wood joints dovetail perfectly for him during a finish job in carpentry, or when he's able to help put out a fire rapidly and safely as a volunteer firefighter. Or maybe it's the privilege of being granddad to four of the cutest (next after ours, anyway) granddaughters that brings a tear to his eye.
Tears are interesting things. They come by sad or happy routes. They arrive when they are most or least expected. They range from thickness in the throat and prickle behind the eyelids to a few drops squeezing out to full out sobbing. They can keep one guessing. (Will I need a tissue in this case or will I need a case of tissues in this issue?) Tears tell us, and others, about ourselves.
When I pay attention to the things that bring a tear to my eye, I'm informed about what matters to me. I note what stirs my heart, what moves me with compassion or wonder or mirth. I learn more of who I really am.
If I recall the times of being brought to tears in recent weeks, here are some things I can learn about myself:
As a homemaker who spends a fair bit of time in the kitchen, sometimes I have to peel onions. 😉
When I teach Sunday School on a passage in Hebrews, the thought of Jesus ripping through the Holy of Holies curtain to make access both ways - man to God and God to man, overwhelms me with gratitude and undeservement.
Farewells are heart-tugging for me, whether they're directed to my married daughter after we've spent a sweet weekend with her and her little family, or to my wise and wonderful music-loving friend who is going back home to living alone after she's stayed with us during Music Camp week.
Also, I found it moving when we Sunday School ladies collectively prayed the Thai way (everyone praying aloud all at the same time) over our pastor's wife/a very dear friend of mine before she and her family moved to Thailand for a year. I let some tears seep out at that point, deciding that later when I told her bye for real after church I wouldn't have to cry, but I ended up weeping again at that time anyway, and she didn't mind. Later still, another church friend saw my teary countenance and said I looked like I could use a hug, and she was right. And all the pain of past partings and the beauty of sharing present sorrow converged and I was a rather soggy mess. (But Jesus wept. And over a dear friend, too.)
Music has a way of stirring my heart...when an ensemble of sixteen vocalists surrounds us guests with their angelic voices as they open a wedding ceremony by singing the hymn, "We Are Standing on Holy Ground."...in the Shenandoah Christian Music Camp programs, especially when the treble choir sings Jesu, Jesu, Fill Us With Your Love, and a young lad comes out front and kneels at the feet of his friend to demonstrate "silently washing his feet"...as thirty VBS students sing their hearts out on the melody in Jesus-words songs such as Let the Children Come to Me, and If Anyone Would Follow Me and the teachers join in with their harmony...
It brings a tear to my eye when we're at the breakfast table discussing "running the race with endurance" (another Hebrews passage for Sunday School) and my teacher daughter mentions her mind picture of loved ones gone on before...cheering for us. It's like they're lined up on the sidelines chanting encouragingly, "Be faithful, be faithful" as we run the race of life. I think especially of my cousin's husband, one who has recently joined the ranks of those urging us to look to Jesus and keep running. (He finished his race after being ill with a serious illness for only two weeks. Two weeks. This also brings tears.)
I can come to tears by a giggle fit seizing me during singing time in family devotions. Yes, exasperated sigh, this still can happen to me. After all these years. And this time it wasn't even triggered by Ken messing up on any of the words (like the time he sang "beth deads are coming" in Softly and Tenderly Jesus is Calling, and I was helpless to hold my laughter in) When will I learn to reign over my emotions by reining in my rains? Maybe when I grow up...
Other people's words and stories can bring me to tears, especially if the one sharing them is also teary. Recently I cried at the wedding of my niece when family members honored the memory of the bride's first mom, who passed away when my niece was six, and when the bride herself publicly honored her second mom through tears of gratitude.
I got choked up when I heard a friend relating stories of the hardships experienced by their relatives and acquaintances who immigrated to North America during wartime. A Jewish family lost most of its male members in the Germany gas chambers, but the one son came to Canada and raised a respectable family here, while determined to forgive the Nazis, and to help needy people however he could. Another friend related several instances of God protecting His people from death when bombs landed nearby them during the current war in Ukraine. Because he got emotional when he shared, it stirred my own emotions even further.
I'm often moved to tears (at least figuratively, if not literally) when an author describes a scene that evokes a sweet childhood memory for me, or when a writer expresses something that I deeply love or long for and haven't quite been able to put into words myself. Such as Rachel Mayes Allen writing about growing peonies (her mother's penchant, same as my Eva-mom's) and growing in gratitude for God's providence in our ordinary days. And a quote by one writer, I think it was Beth Moore, about wanting Jesus to be the only focus of my love...when I go to Him bleeding from life wounds, let it be my self-love that hemorrhages.
And then there's Jeanne Birdsall's way of describing music in the Penderwick family's experience that lands in my soul and swells there delightedly until there's no other way to say it but "it brings a tear to my eye". You know, when "what (piano music) was lovely before was now luscious and heartbreaking...and Alec's saxophone roamed, impassioned, between her melody (Batty's) and his harmony (Jeffrey's), breaking into wild runs that made everyone shiver." That kind of thing.
The joy of family also brings a tear to my eye. Recently, all fifteen of us Kenites were together for the first time since the twins and triplets arrived. While out on a walk and trailing behind our family parade that included two double strollers and one single, I could've been seen putting my arm around My Dearest Dear to ask in a tear-hushed voice, "Do you feel as blessed as I do?"
I admit that I sometimes experience frustration - and even despair - at being a person so readily brought to tears, but then I tell myself I don't need to be ashamed of them. After all, didn't Jesus talk about us producing rivers of water and being the salt of the earth?
In all seriousness, though, there's something I want even more than being able to have fewer tears. What I really want is to be a person who is moved by the things that move the heart of God.
How about you? What are some things that bring a tear to your eye? Do those things tell you (and others) anything about yourself?