Where Sorrow and Joy Dance Together

They sometimes hold hands, you know...

Sorrow and Joy.

Like old lovers, they often quarrel.   Sorrow rises up and joy feels small.   Joy soars and sorrows plummet.

There are moments, though, where they dance together.    Sorrow moving slow and with anguish, while Joy pushing for the salsa.

The last years of my life have been a strange love affair between deep joy and profound sorrow.   In the midst of such a couple, I find Jesus.

You see, in far off places or in nearby places, Sorrow finds me.    And so does Joy.   They both chase me down and beg me to allow them to stay the night.

Sorrow reaches for me in the face of a dead young man who needlessly succumbed to a disease long-eradicated in developed parts of this world.    Sorrow grabs me in perceived hopelessness.   Sorrow twists my arm in slow, yet frequent bursts;  story after story of loss.   

Joy calls for me on the La Mosquitia breeze.  Joy knows my name and speaks my heart language.  Joy never yells, nor twists.  Joy carefully draws me in.

A day dawns without even a glimpse of what is yet to come.   Will Sorrow have her day, or will Joy become my hero?   

Somehow, I believe the two will dance wildly with me until the curtain falls. 

"....sorrowful, yet always rejoicing."  2 Corinthians 6:10a