I’ve always been a bit of an
emotional person. In the past I’ve been kind of shameful about how emotional I can
be… all the days I left high school in tears, waiting to be comforted by my
parents. As if I didn’t have enough social problems, I let myself look
vulnerable by doing the least manly thing possible in front of my peers: shed a
tear (or many).
Last night reminded me of this.
After having a good appointment with my therapist yesterday morning, I was left
emotionally vulnerable. As a result, comments from someone at work and then
someone at dinner set me off and put me into tears. Neither of those people
meant their words in a malicious way, but with my emotional state at the time, I
was susceptible to hurt.
In talking to my anonymous pal
that has been commenting on my blog (well, he’s not anonymous to me anymore),
we’ll call him “Alex”, he mentioned to me a scripture study project he’d done
in which he read through the four Gospels and outlined what a real man is like,
based on the actions and reactions of the perfect man, Jesus Christ. To not
much surprise, not much (if anything) that he recorded from this study
coincided with what the world believes a man is.
In reference to the day I’d had,
Alex mentioned John
11:35. A quick bit of background on the scripture: Lazarus, a close friend
of the Savior, had died. Though I think He knew He was about to raise Lazarus
from the dead, I’m sure His heart broke because those He loved (Mary and
Martha) were heartbroken about their brother’s death. Even though Martha had
expressed faith in the Plan of Salvation (particularly the resurrection—verse 24),
it was painful for her to think that she would never see, speak to, or hug her
brother again in this life.
The Savior was able to cry and
weep. And He is the perfect “manly” man. Why shouldn’t I be able to? Yes, I need
to keep tabs on my emotions and not be crying all the time. But there is
nothing wrong with needing to weep and cry it out when I have a bad day.
After the whole crying episode
happened last night, my roommate Alejandro said to me, kind of jokingly to
cheer me up, “Boys don’t cry.” My reply to him was simple, “Men do.”
