The Healing Power of Tears: A Biblical Perspective Christian Counseling

The Healing Power of Tears

By Jane Perkins, MS, LCPC, LPC-S

You may have grown up believing that crying is a sign of weakness. Scripture says otherwise. Tears are part of how God made us, the Bible is full of faithful people who wept before Him, and Jesus Himself wept. Crying is good, and many of us have spent years trying to shut it off.

I have worked in this field for 27 years, and one pattern I see again and again in the women I work with is the cost of refusing to cry. They hold it in, push through, and put on a strong face, and then they wonder why nothing seems to heal.

What Our Culture Gets Completely Wrong

Our culture treats emotional toughness as one of the highest virtues. We’re told to toughen up, keep moving, and never let anyone see us cry. We pass that message on to our children, and then we’re surprised when they grow into adults who don’t know what to do with pain.

Trying to be strong in this way can leave us weaker. A heart that refuses to grieve can become a heart that struggles to feel much of anything. Emotional numbness isn’t strength. More often, it’s a wound that was never cared for.

A physical wound that’s ignored can become infected, and emotional wounds can work the same way. Crying is not falling apart. It is often where healing begins, and Scripture confirms this over and over again.

What the Bible Actually Says About Tears

The Bible does not treat tears as a sign of spiritual immaturity. Read it carefully, and you will find some of the most faithful people in history weeping openly before God.

In Mark 9:24, a desperate father cries out to Jesus, “I believe; help my unbelief.” Those tears represented raw, honest faith, not its absence. In Luke 7:38, a woman washed Jesus’ feet with her own tears. Repentance, love, and deep surrender poured out of her in one moment. Matthew 26:75 records Peter weeping bitterly after denying Jesus. Those tears broke something open in him that led to one of the most powerful restorations in the New Testament.

And then there is John 11:35. Two words that carry more weight than most sermons I have ever heard.

Jesus wept.

He knew He was about to raise Lazarus from the dead. He held all power over life and death in His hands. And He still wept when He saw the grief of the people around Him. If tears were weakness, Jesus would not have used them. What His tears show us is that sorrow is a natural, God-honoring response to living in a broken world.

The Science Behind What God Already Knew

Science keeps confirming what Scripture has taught all along: God designed tears with purpose. Emotional tears are different from the everyday tears that keep our eyes moist. In the 1980s, biochemist William Frey found that emotional tears contain stress-related hormones, including prolactin and ACTH, the hormone that signals the body to produce cortisol. Cortisol is the body’s main stress hormone. A 2026 study at Maastricht University found that cortisol rises in our tears when we are under stress, and other studies have found that cortisol levels drop after people cry. Crying and stress relief go together, and I believe crying is one way God designed the body to release stress and return to calm.

Researchers have also found that crying can activate the parasympathetic nervous system, the part of the body that helps us rest and settle, and they believe crying may release oxytocin and endorphins, which bring a sense of comfort and ease pain. The soothing effect isn’t always immediate. It can take some time after the tears before you feel calmer.

The clearest finding of all is that people tend to feel better after crying when someone comforts them. Psychologist Lauren Bylsma and her colleagues found that crying was most likely to help when a person had emotional support nearby. People felt worse after crying when they were ashamed of their tears or surrounded by unsupportive people. Tears do much of their good in the presence of others. Long before anyone studied this, Romans 12:15 told us to weep with those who weep.

Making Room for Your Tears

Rather than treating crying as something to avoid, give yourself room for it. If you’ve held back for a long time, set aside time to read the Psalms aloud and bring your sorrow honestly before the Lord. Let the tears come if they do, and let someone you trust be with you in it. You don’t need to be ashamed of crying. God sees your tears, and He made you able to cry.

Tears Throughout the Bible Tell a Bigger Story

David poured his tears into the Psalms with raw honesty. Psalm 56:8 says, “You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book?” God collects David’s tears. He does not dismiss them. Everyone matters enough to keep.

Jeremiah wept so consistently over his people that history calls him the weeping prophet. His tears were not self-pity. They were empathy, compassion, and a heart that felt what God felt about the suffering of the people He loved.

Peter’s bitter weeping after denying Jesus opened a door that led to transformation. Those tears were not the end of Peter’s story. They were the turning point of it.

Tears Connect Us to Each Other

Romans 12:15 tells us to weep with those who weep. Not fix them. Not give them a quick theological answer. Weep with them.

Jesus modeled this before He commanded it. At Lazarus’ tomb, surrounded by grief, He wept alongside the people He loved even while holding the miracle in His hands. That tells us something profound about how God sees our pain. He does not observe it from a distance. He enters it.

When we allow ourselves to cry in front of others, and when we stay present with others in their tears, something happens that no amount of advice can replicate. Connection forms. God’s comfort flows through human presence. Vulnerability creates a space where healing can actually begin.

Tears do not isolate us. They draw us together when we stop being ashamed of them.

And Here Is Where It All Points

Revelation 21:4 gives us the most tender promise in all of Scripture. “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore.”

God does not promise that tears end in this life. But He does promise that He sees every single one and that a day comes when He wipes them away with His own hand.

Until then, your tears are not evidence of weak faith. They are evidence that you still feel, that you still grieve what is broken, and that you have not become so hardened by this world that pain no longer touches you. That matters. Feeling deeply is not a liability. It is part of what it means to carry God’s image.

Embrace the tears. Bring them to God honestly. Let them do the work He designed them to do.

Reflection Questions

These are questions I use in counseling to help people go deeper. Take your time with them.

1. How have your experiences with crying shaped what you believe about vulnerability and strength? Where did you learn that tears meant weakness, and do you still believe it?

2. Think of a time when tears brought you closer to God or helped you feel His comfort. What did that moment teach you about His character?

3. What would it look like to stop suppressing your tears and treat crying as part of how God heals, rather than something to manage or hide?

4. Jesus wept even though He already knew He would raise Lazarus from the dead. What does that tell you about God’s empathy and His understanding of human suffering?

5. How could this perspective change the way you support someone else who is hurting? What shifts when you see tears as a gift that helps us heal rather than a problem to solve?

Resources

Scripture quotations are from the ESV(R) Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version(R)), copyright 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Barmpari, D. A., van Deurse, W., Quaedflieg, C. W. E. M., van Amelsvoort, T. A. M. J., Gijs, M., & Hernaus, D. (2026). Tear fluid cortisol as a marker of acute stress reactivity: A validation study. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 191, 107942. https://cris.maastrichtuniversity.nl/en/publications/tear-fluid-cortisol-as-a-marker-of-acute-stress-reactivity-a-vali/

Gracanin, A., Bylsma, L. M., & Vingerhoets, A. J. J. M. (2014). Is crying a self-soothing behavior? Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 502. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4035568

Bylsma, L. M., Croon, M. A., Vingerhoets, A. J. J. M., & Rottenberg, J. (2011). When and for whom does crying improve mood? A daily diary study of 1004 crying episodes. Journal of Research in Personality, 45(4), 385-392. https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/psy_facpub/1829

Frey, W. H., with Langseth, M. (1985). Crying: The Mystery of Tears. Winston Press.

Murube, J. (2009). Hypotheses on the development of psychoemotional tearing. The Ocular Surface, 7(4), 171-175.

Ready to Take the First Step?

My name is Jane Perkins, and I own Are You Ready Counseling. I offer online, Christ-centered biblical counseling for adults in Illinois and Missouri who are dealing with emotional pain, mental health struggles, spiritual confusion, or loneliness. You don’t have to face this alone or stay stuck where you are. I offer a free, no-obligation 20-minute consultation. Bring your questions and the grief you’ve held back for too long, and come as you are.

Visit: www.AreYouReadyCounseling.com
Email: jane@areyoureadycounseling.com
Book your free consultation: calendly.com/areyoureadycounseling

Open the Word. Trust His promises. And walk forward in His truth.

The Healing Power of Tears: A Biblical Perspective