I have turned to images, expressions, music, and sometimes silence to help me better understand things where words just don't belong. This imparticular image I found on the wall of a building as I walked the streets of Darwin. She was just there frozen in her affliction, black tear resting on her despondent cheek. It has such a sense of motion, it made me spin into a series of concentric thoughts... What happened to this beauty to cause a look that can make my insides want to tear? How could one so capture the sorrow of a soul with cheap black spray paint on a white cement wall? What more perfect medium then the cold stone and the black and white of pain? What happened after that moment captured in time did her despair swollow her up or did she breathe in deeply and collect the pieces and start again?
On my journey of faith I have pondered many times the sorrows of this world; both my own and the general human race. So often the question is asked by non-believers and believers alike, "Why?", to all the suffering and sorrow. I still don't know why but here are some thoughts I have collected.
"The more sorrow one encounters, the more joy one can contain."
" God didn't promise days without pain, laughter without sorrow, sun without rain, but He did promise strength for the day, comfort for the tears, and light for the way."
"God weaps with us so we can one day laugh with Him."
"Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you experience various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. But endurance must do its complete work, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing." James 1:2-4
"Sorrow makes us children again." Ralph Waldo Emerson
"I assure you whoever does not welcome the Kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it." Mark 10:15
It is humbling and mind boggling really to even begin to get your head around this. I just pray I am never to busy trying to understand it to walk in the faith of an empty hand. We have a priest that suffered great sorrow who can and does intercede for us. "My sould is swallowed up in sorrow-to the point of death." Matt 26:38.Oh, that our sorrows of this world would bore out wells to hold the joy and freedom that Jesus bought for us, and we might begin to understand the sweetness of that love and sacrifice. "So you also have sorrow now. But I will see you again. Your hearts will rejoice, and no one will rob you of your joy." John 16:22.
When will You be enough for me? Forgive my adulterous heart that causes us both pain.
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