| Strength and Beauty |
Chapter 20 |
Page 3 |
Even trouble should not quench laughter. Sorrow often rolls like a dark flood over human lives, and it may sometimes seem as if there could be no gladness in the heart thereafter. But however great the grief, joy should live through it. Christian joy does not have its source on the earth, but in heaven, in the everlasting hills. People who live in the valleys amid great mountains have water even in the driest, hottest summer, because they receive their supply from springs which flow out of the mountains and are unaffected by heat or drought. The Christian’s springs of joy are perennial, because they flow from under the throne of God. No matter what goes wrong, we should still sing and be glad.
Along the shore one sometimes comes upon fresh water springs which bubble up on the edge of the salt sea. The tides roll over them and bury them out of sight for the time, but when the brackish floods ebb again the springs are found sweet as ever. So, after the deepest sorrow should the heart’s fountains of joy be found, still pouring out their streams of gladness. Christ says much about this people having his joy, a joy which the world can neither give nor take away. He says, too, that their sorrow shall be turned into joy, meaning that the deepest joy in this world is transformed sorrow, and not the joy which has never known pain.
If, therefore, we are Christians, grief should not crush laughter out of our life. Some people seem to think that it would be disloyalty to their friends who are gone for them ever to be happy again. But this is not true. Of course, there is a sense in which we never get over sorrow. Our life is never the same after sore bereavement. We carry the marks forever. But they should not be marks of sorrow. There is a beatitude of the Master’s which pronounces those who mourn blessed or happy, because they have God’s comfort. God’s comfort is heaven’s joy entering into the human soul. It is not a Lethe which makes men forget pain and loss; it is a benediction which transmutes pain into joy and loss into gain. Sorrow healed by God’s wise, skilful treatment leaves no ugly scars, no bleeding wounds. Nothing beautiful is lost in the grief which Christ comforts. The sweetest songs sung on earth are those learned in the darkened room of trial.
Page 3