The Nature of Sorrow

by Ariel Christine Dunn

No one truly understands the nature of sorrow. It is like a predator ready to strike when we are most alone. You feel the coldness of your body and the hollowness of your soul. Before you know it, you are utterly consumed. Sometimes the things outside us seem to provoke it. But sorrow comes not from the happenings around us, but from the void those happenings leave within.

For many of us this may come from having something or someone who is a part of our very being torn from us. It may come from the desperate yearnings to be the person that we imagine being in the depths of our dreams. If only we could rise above it all and conquer our woes. These thoughts only leave us wistful and longing for transformation. Is there no power strong enough to save us from ourselves? Are we willing to be saved? Or shall our sorrow and fear imprison us inside ourselves forever?

We hold the key. The God-given key will free us from our self-exile. Oh, what a selfish people we are. If only we could find something to live for, something to work for. Would that not give our lives purpose? That and that alone can change the deadly grip upon us into a beckoning, helping hand to others. When we find this key, we also find the way to Christ.

Imagine if everyone did this! Then our dreams could actually change the world. For by helping others find themselves, we find ourselves. Which leads us to our original question: What is the nature of sorrow? Why does it exist? Sorrow was not created to torment us. It was created to heal us. One must suffer to understand another's pain. For through the pains of sorrow is born the greatest gift of all: compassion. VT