Is Sorrow Your Enemy or Friend?

My heart is often heavy for the people I love. I am tenaciously loyal to family and friends, sometimes to a fault. However, I choose to default to love. I cannot just turn my love on and off even in times of disappointment, challenge or trouble. I’m just not wired that way. Sometimes their heartache and sorrows overwhelm me because like a typical male, I want to “fix it,” or make it just “go away,” and I can’t.

Not long ago I heard a speaker ask, “Is sorrow your friend or your enemy?” It really challenged me. More times in my life I’ve treated sorrow, disappointment, heartache and challenge as my enemy instead of learning valuable lessons from them. Sorrow can be a great teacher if we will learn from it.

Do you run from sorrow or pain? Do you ignore it and hope it will just go away? Do you treat it lightly and without regard? Do you suppress it as if to say it does not affect your life? Now that last one is really amusing because sorrow affects EVERY one of us and eventually accumulates when we dismiss or ignore it. There are many responses to sorrow and most of them are not positive. But there are some positives we can take away from our sorrows.

Sorrow gives every Christ-follower an opportunity to exercise their faith. It doesn’t mean we ignore or deny the existence of sorrow as if to say that Christ-followers are immune to it. Let’s remember our Lord’s heart was deeply troubled and filled with sorrow. Isaiah (53) even refers to Him as the “Man of Sorrows”. I take great comfort in knowing Jesus, God’s very own Son experienced sorrow. It means He understands and knows how sorrow affects us!

I want to challenge you to make sorrow your friend. I don’t mean walk around in a terminal melancholy state like the character “Eyeore” from Winnie the Pooh. We need to learn from our sorrow. We need to let sorrow speak and guide us. Sorrow has taught me some enduring lessons in patience, prayer, faith, second-chances, grace, and even darkness. When we embrace sorrow we acknowledge that God is Lord over ALL things. I know I forget that when sorrow is trying to swallow me.

This perspective is very different from the world’s view of sorrow. However, when we embrace sorrow we recognize that God is so much bigger. I’m not saying it doesn’t affect us, but if we begin to see God over (sovereign) our sorrow we no longer have to live afraid, or on the run from it. We trust God. And that is probably the greatest difference between those who befriend sorrow and those who don’t. During my winter to spring illness this year I learned to trust God in the face of sorrow. I still had a tough road to travel, but it was much different from the past when I often surrendered to sorrow. Trust God, it works!

Embracing sorrow makes joy full, real and more meaningful. And joy makes all the difference in daily living.