Happy, Salty Tears

Did you ever wake up feeling so happy and blessed that you break out in tears? I've never had that happen before, but today is the day.

It is so strange because it is the thought of salt that makes me cry, and as the tears trickle over my cheeks I remember that tears are salty and cry even more because more salt make me think about Mary "salting" and swaddling her child. I see her tenderly cradling her son, and I feel her love because I've cradled a son and daughters and I know that intense feeling--it's so much a part of me that it's not just in my heart, it's in my bones and muscles and flows in my blood. It's me.

As I feel that love I think about how the child Mary cradled would grow to be a man and that the love Mary felt for Him would be so different from the hate the world would throw at Him. That hate became so intense they crucified Him, and He allowed it to happen--because of me. He sacrificed Himself for me! And then I shed more salty tears and think about how all the sacrifices under the law of Moses were salted and that the salting of His swaddling was a foreshadowing of His sacrifice.

I don't know why this research on salt has affected me so very much, but it has. Everything I see and do reminds me of salt. Besides eating it every day as I watched people throwing salt on their sidewalks and driveways during the recent storm so that the ice would melt, I remembered all the times the Savior has melted the iciness in me.

In short, dozens of times a day I encounter salt and think of my Savior so that my heart is full to overflowing. And this morning it's all spilling out.