The Sorrow that Weans

An aura of injustice surrounds human sorrow and God is often the accredited agent in creating it. It is questioned why He would create beings who will inevitably sorrow over the various circumstances in which their lives unfold. If God is good, it is asked, why do tears so often enshroud the lives of His beloved children?

Does not a human father shield his child from moments of sadness in any situation that lies under his purview? And does not God's power extend to the ends of the earth thus enabling Him to annihilate any possible instance of sadness? Is it rather that He was never really any good to begin with? Perhaps we have just wished Him to be good to soften the harshness of the world around us. His power would be able to abolish human sorrow but His supposed beneficence chooses not to. What are we to make of this?

Before dismissing God's omnipotence or His benevolence, let us first ask the question: in His power, can God use human grief for the greater purpose of His goodness?

What contentment and comfort a growing babe experiences within the womb of his mother during pregnancy. Her body offers him continual nourishment from the nutrients of the food she consumes, protection from harsh temperatures behind the insulated wall of her flesh, isolation from all dangers by the hiddenness of pre-natal development within.

Pretending ourselves as babes once again in utero, we would not be able to imagine a greater existence. But our contentment abruptly ends when we mature to such a size as to outgrow our peaceable surroundings, are forced out of our only-known paradise, and shoved into a world of cold air, strange noises, and blinding light. We are no longer fed when we so desire but must cry out to be given nourishment. Exposed to new and various dangers outside of the womb, we begin to understand the woes of the unfortunate Job as he cursed the day of his birth (c.f. Job 3).

But our exposure to the threatening elements of this world is simultaneous to our exposure to its delights as well. Gradually we are granted the ability to use the light of day and encounter a whole new world full of other selves like us. We see beautiful colors, landscapes, faces, plants, and animals. We taste satisfying food and drink as well as smell sweet and astonishing scents. As we listen, we begin to distinguish laughter and music from other sounds of activity. Countless opportunities await our senses to encounter this new realm we have been thrown into. All these opportunities begin to make us feel at home here on earth and wish to hold onto this world in a similar way we wanted to remain in the ever so familiar womb of our first days. Quickly have we begun to imagine no other place so conducive to fostering happiness.

However, it must be admitted that despite experiencing these joys, sprinkled throughout our earthly bliss is sorrow. Things ranging from mild discomforts to sharper pains, emotional losses to profound loneliness, deep griefs to tormenting regrets. Swiftly does doubt cloud our vision and taunt our former innocent outlook of a good world around us.

Yet, maybe this doubt, caused by the sum of all our experienced sorrows, has a divinely designed purpose. Perhaps rather than being an interruption to the goodness of earthly life, human sorrow is a uniquely fitting avenue that expresses God's ultimate goodness.

What if our sorrow in some mysterious way alludes to greater hope? Perhaps like Mary Shelley we can imagine "those sorrows are sent to wean us from the earth" (Frankenstein). Just as the babe needs to be forced through the birth canal to live in the world, and then forced off the breast to eat solid food, do we not think in our various attachments to this world we will not similarly need to be forced off the terrestrial tit of earth to leave the delights of this world behind?

By periodically sending crosses our way, God is gently tugging at our hearts, pulling them away from inordinate love of what is not meant to last forever to that which is. Should we really be grieved at this? Rather, let us rejoice in the sorrows of our hearts knowing that to the commensurate extent of our sadness God is able to bring about an even greater happiness.

To reflect on sorrow in this way does not force us to ignore the reality of sadness. Rather it puts it into a clearer focus and enables us to accept sad moments much as we would accept medicine that is meant to make us ready for health. Sorrows are not administered to us as woes but as redirecting signs pointing us to the reality of a more permanent world beyond.

"Is everything sad going to come untrue?" asks Samwise Gamgee as he approaches the end of his journey (The Lord of the Rings Part III: The Return of the King). For the little hobbit, as more things became clear to him, what was previously experienced as pain during his journey, in the end, is put into a marvelously new and joyful light. Will everything that we experience as sorrow in this our earthly journey become untrue for us as we begin a new one into the next?

As we go through our second birth, the one that leads us into eternal life, may we see these sorrows as signs pointing to the greatness of what is to come when God draws all things to Himself.