Some have thought
that true joy consists in never having a sorrow; that those who have
sorrow have not found the way of peace. In this they err. Those who never
have a sorrow rejoice because they have no sorrows, but some who have
sorrow have learned to rejoice in the Lord. This is truest joy.
"Sorrowful," said one who was crucified with Christ, "yet always
rejoicing." He never once denied having sorrow; nay, he said, "I have
great heaviness, and continual sorrow in my heart." But he also said, "I
glory." It was the deep sorrow that made him most like Jesus. He had
feeling. "We sorrow," he said, "but not as those who have no hope." The
world knows a sorrow that the Christian does not know. Christians should
be careful lest in hardening themselves against feeling they do not render
themselves incapable of feeling compassion, sympathy, and pity.
Let the tears flow. If you keep them back, the fountain will dry up. May
the Lord pity those who have no tears! Jesus wept. The apostle Paul said,
"Out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote unto you with many
tears." Oh, that unfeeling heart that can not suffer, that dry heart that
has no fountain of tears! It weeps not over the sorrows of others and
consequently can not rejoice when others are joyful.
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