I remember where I was sitting in a meeting room at the camp and conference center outside San Antonio. It was spring 2019 and I had just heard the testimony of my colleague, Kathy, after a hard year of what she called the “decimation” of her staff team. She was trusting God in a mode of slow, intentional dependence. Preceding that were words from my colleague, Anna. She was reminding all of us in the room that Jesus says the death of the kernel of wheat is what produces many more seeds.

We were discussing revival, longing for it, planning for it, wondering for it and I was bought in. I had been living in a theme of abundance and revival seemed like the natural next step.

And just as I was sitting there listening to these testimonies, the Holy Spirit hit me, out of the blue, with a clear impression in the form of a simple sentence.

“The women will lead us with their tears.”

This impression connected to the sharing of my colleagues and rang true because it was near Easter. In the Bible story, it was the women whose tears led them to show up graveside at dawn. In so doing, they were the first to meet the resurrected Jesus and thus became the leaders in spreading the news to the rest of the disciples about the risen Lord.

Over the last five years, I have continued to ponder and track this theme. How would tears lead us to revival? I didn’t expect to become a woman of tears myself, but in the last two years, I found tears to be a frequent companion. Most recently, I took a leap of faith off a cliff that lead me straight to what felt like a confirmed death. It didn’t even provide solace to have a premonition back in March when, alongside my spiritual director, we had a clear sense that I would die before this process of my career redirection came to completion. When it happened, I was still in shock and so was she. I thought I had died enough in the process of waiting and emptying myself, but evidently there was more dying to do. And with death and the process of death, come immense tears.

How strange this post must read to those outside the Christian faith. Why would tears and death pave the way to something good and holy? The only way to understand is to know and cling to the path of Jesus who went to the cross. His death made way for resurrection, glory, and multiplicative transformations in the world. He was the kernel of wheat that died and produced many more seeds. In mysterious and profound ways, he invites us to take this same path with him and promises to do the same for us.

When you hear the word revival, you may think of a big group of people in an exuberant state of being with massive ministry and church growth. In fact, when we hear the word revival we should be thinking of dead bones that need the Spirit’s breath. If you feel like you may be dying in tears and crushing, you may very well be poised for reviving.

Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. – John 12:24-25

I have suspicions that in this season God is doing something through the suffering of women to prepare us to be the forerunners of revival. We are the caretakers who feel the pain of the splitting and fractured world, especially as mothers to children.

Take heart. The place of your deepest pain and burden, the space where you feel you may have been exterminated, is the soil from which the seeds of new life will sprout.