Feeling Sorrow

For Monday, September 17, 2007
Proverbs 25:20

Whoever sings songs to a heavy heart
is like one who takes off a garment on a cold day,
and like vinegar on soda.

"By the waters of Babylon,
there we sat down and wept,
when we remembered Zion."

There is a time to mourn. There is a time when it is appropriate to grieve. The religion of Scripture is not one that condemns or even tries to escape sorrow. We live in a fallen world and grief is the natural and appropriate response to the trials it brings.

"On the willows there
we hung up our lyres.
For there our captors
required of us songs,
and our tormentors, mirth, saying,
'Sing us one of the songs of Zion!'" (Psalm 137)

There is a time for grief, and when friends insist upon "happy feelings" they become our tormentors. They take off our coats, leaving us exposed to the raw cold. They hope to arouse us out of our pain, but only intensify the turmoil as vinegar on soda.

What are we to do when our neighbor mourns? Mourn with him. There is a time when mourning needs to end, but before we can insist upon that, we must earn the right to lift someone out of his doldrums. We must mourn with him. And we cannot mourn until we ourselves have felt our own sorrow.

There are worse things than not being happy. It is worse not to feel sorrow when a love is lost; it is worse not to connect with another's pain. It is worse to expend energy trying to avoid every risk of pain. The reason that avoiding pain at all costs is worse, is because it deadens the joy of the hope to come.

"When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion,
we were like those who dream.
Then our mouth was filled with laughter,
and our tongue with shouts of joy;
then they said among the nations,
'The Lord has done great things for them.'
The Lord has done great things for us;
we are glad." (Psalm 126:1-3)

It is good to feel sorrow precisely because sorrow is not the final emotion. It is not sorrow, even when we feel it, that defines our life. It is joy, not the "happy" feeling of shutting our "sad" thoughts, but the deep, real, everlasting joy of the hope that is in us, the hope secured upon a dreadful cross, that breaks through even now as the sun's rays through the clouds, that will come down out of heaven in full splendor and end all sorrow. Until that time, do not be afraid to grieve and to mourn with those who mourn.