English Compass - bringing christian fellowship to korean americans

When Crying is All You Can Do

A faint cry from the bedroom gets me racing to check on my 17-day-old son, Enoch. He’s fidgeting, flailing his arms, kickin’ his legs and lets out in exasperation a near-deafening cry that demands 110% of my attention and observation skills. The mosaic of a million different expressions on his face, which changes every nanosecond, makes me second- and third-guess my deduction about why he's crying.

Is he wet, soiled, hungry, stuffed nose, hot - or all of the above at the same time?
Despite my ignorance on what condition he might be in - no one can dispute that he is crying.

I talk to him and reassure him that I’m there for him. He cries.

I gently pat him and sing him my bass-version of a lullaby that’s supposed to soothe him. He cries.

I pick him up and lay him across my chest and rub him to help him either burp or fart. He cries.

I lay him down on the changing-table and get ready to check & change his diapers. He cries all the more.

He simply cries. Crying is all he can do.

He sees me. He knows I’m there. He knows I’ll help him and do whatever it takes to give him comfort, peace, and rest. But he cries.

Because crying is all he can do when he’s wet, soiled, hungry, uncomfortable, frustrated, wanting, etc.

I think of how much my crying God has put up with. How much of my incessant, loud, obnoxious, not-knowing-when-to-stop crying, He has endured.

At every turn of discomfort – I’ve cried until He came and made it all OK. Like my son, Enoch does with me.

My desperate and helpless cry has never failed to reach the ears of my heavenly Father. He’s been there, every time to reassure me of His presence. A divine pat on my shoulders or the comforting rub on my back - would always put me at ease and help me to surrender and fall back to sleep in His arms of love. When crying was all I could do - it was enough to awaken and summon the presence of my heavenly Father.

As the psalmist testifies:
I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me. O Israel, put your hope in the LORD both now and forevermore. (Ps. 131:2-3)

Pastor Justin Yang is currently the CYE Ministries Director at Center for Youth Evangelism at Andrews University and a happy father for Enoch Yang