Joy and Sorrow

I've been thinking...

There is a kind of joy in sorrow.

Think of the times that you laugh until you cry, or when something is so good it hurts. Life is good, but it pulls at your heart strings. Loving someone makes your heart leap for joy. It also causes it to ache. In the aching, there is the satisfaction of having loved. The depth of the feeling of separation or loss is painful, but there is joy in having the capacity to love...and to hurt. When you lose someone, you will hurt, deeply. But with the hurt, remember you have loved and been loved. When you love, there is the joy of knowing you will hurt, and when you hurt, there is the joy of knowing you love.

There is poetry in depth of emotion. I am thankful that I can feel, that I am not numb to pleaure and pain.
There is tension between good and evil, hope and despair, pleasure and suffering, love and hate, joy and sorrow. Life is not easy. There is heartache, struggle, tears. But there is a pathway of joy.

But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until full day. Proverbs 4:18
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfector of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12:1-2






Brother Caleb and I














Cousin Cara and I

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To those I am missing now, I love you.

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