Sorrow

Sorrow

Have you ever felt true sorrow? Deep, penetrating, soul wrenching sorrow? Perhaps you’ve experienced a divorce and that tearing of one flesh that happens prior to or during the divorce. Perhaps you’ve worked so hard your whole life toward a goal and now that dream is falling apart, and you realize you will never have it and all your years of effort are for nothing. Perhaps, like me, someone you loved died way too early and the pain of losing them moves with you through time. Or maybe yours was a deep betrayal by someone who should have protected you, your mother, your father, a grandfather, a sibling. Perhaps a trauma occurred that changed the very core of who you are.

Sorrow seeps into the cracks. The crevices of our being become filled with it. We carry it and others can see it on us, no matter how good of a liar or pretender we are. Sorrow can crush us. Sorrow can change our personality or shape our life vision. It can rob us of innocence and the ability to trust. Sorrow is a thunderstorm that drowns our hopes and washes away any ability to believe things will get better. We know that when the storm passes, the gardens will be ruined, the grass will be mud, and our hearts will never again be the same.

Many people in the midst of sorrow ask why! Why is this happening? Why am I or my loved one dealing with this? Why? Yet, why questions even when there are answers, never bring peace. Is it possible to find peace in the middle of sorrow or in the ongoing life of sorrow?

For me, Jesus is my reference. He was called a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. So I know he gets it, my deepest on-going sorrow of missing someone who should have been here with me but isn’t. The grief of not having that one in my life to make me laugh, to comfort me, to offer me pieces of wisdom she recently gleaned. He has been there in the death of his adoptive father, Joseph, and the grief he bore as the oldest son caring for his mother during that time, whatever his age. He knew it in the loss of his friend Lazarus, in those moments when he looked upon Jerusalem and wanted so much to wrap them in his love but they wouldn’t have it. He knew it when over and over those closest to him missed the point and he was left to carry the weight of his mission alone. He understood it perhaps best as he wrestled in the garden with the very point of why he was here, the knowing was crushing him and he begged for another way, but submitted to the father’s will. And of course he knew it on the cross when his best friends had deserted him, denied him, and betrayed him. He gets it today, because yesterday and today are one to him and nothing under the sun is new.

So my sorrow is never bigger than he can bear. It may be bigger than me. It may change something in the core of my being, but if I keep my eyes on Him, it will only change me to be more like Jesus. That doesn’t make it easy, painless, or enjoyable by any means. It simply means the Prince of Peace will step into my sorrow and grief with me and the Spirit will comfort me, peace can be my companion because I know him. And it carried me through the darkest days of my life. And He has given me the hope of glory, the hope of tomorrow. There will be a day when my life here is done and I step through the doorway into eternity (if Jesus tarries), and when I do, I’ll see the face that met me in those dark places to stand with me. He’ll love on me and welcome me in a way I probably can’t even comprehend today. And then, when that first hundred years or whatever it takes to absorb Jesus, then I will also have the joy of seeing the face of my precious girl, and the others that have gone ahead of me. All that sorrow will add up and make sense then. Not here. Not now. And that’s ok. It doesn’t need to make sense to me now. It makes sense to him and that’s good enough.