The Two Sorrows

There are two kinds of sorrow. One sorrow will lead us away from the source of our pain into a place of isolation. The other sorrow will lead us toward the source of our pain to embrace its presence in a fellowship of suffering with Christ.

The sorrow that leads us away is fueled by a false hope that by increasing the distance from its source we will somehow ease our pain. Distance is never a healer. The other kind of sorrow – the God-directed kind of sorrow – leads us back to embrace the object of our sorrow to explore its cause and effect and offer our response to God for His healing touch.

In times of sorrow we begin to explore the reasons why we feel the way we do in its presence.  In this exploration we begin to discover where our hope was misplaced in the trauma.  In this place of renewed insight we begin to take steps to lift our sorrow from the traumatic ruts of life and place it at the feet of God.  In this repositioned place our sorrow will become, over time, a place of joy.