My son had an infection in his armpit last week. I took him to an urgent care late Friday, because I didn’t want the abscess untreated through the weekend. They looked at it skeptically, but decided to try to treat it with an antibiotic instead of draining it.
By Monday, however, the infection had grown substantially. I kept my 14-year-old home from school and took him to the pediatrician, who raised his eyebrows at the size and color of the lump.
“There are a couple of reasons the medication might not have worked,” he explained, “One is that it’s the wrong antibiotic for whatever has caused this infection. The other is that it’s the right medication, but there’s so much fluid around the infection that the antibiotic can’t reach the site until the fluid is drained.” We opted to go the different antibiotic route, but the concept of an infection surrounded by fluid stayed in my mind.
Two days later an online support group in which I am active imploded. People were hurting, hurting others, and the wounds spread rapidly. A friend reached out, saying she’d cried over the mess several times, though she hates to cry.
I thought of my son’s abscess, and how sometimes healing can’t begin until the fluid surrounding an infection is drained. I thought of John 11:35, where “Jesus wept.” I thought of 1 Kings 20:5 where God says, “I have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will heal you.”
“Crying may be exactly what you need,” I told my friend, gently, “Because tears may be the way to clear the way for God to reach your heart.”
