There’s an ancient proverb that flat out states, “The blessing of the Lord makes rich and he adds no sorrow to it” (Proverbs 10:22).
At face value, that’s just flat out wrong.
There is no such thing as blessing without brokenness.
There isn’t.
Life is not a fairy tale. We don’t live this life without sorrow.
We don’t.
Your husband leave you? Your wife die? You plumb the depths of sorrow.
Believe me I, and so many, know. This first day of March, on the 19th day of this month of March, the first day of spring last year and this year in March, when flowers bloom, the sun shines, and life and love is in the air, well, truth be told, there’s sorrow.
She will have been gone one year.
You lose your little one, your loved one, your whoever – fill in the blank – you sorrow. We all do.
We grieve. There is such a tremendous price to pay for loving – and losing – someone.
Such love, then loss, flat out flattens you out.
Prostrate, you find yourself in a puddle of your own tears.
Not once, but often.
The good news is that that is not (capitol NOT) what this proverb declares.
Keil and Delitzsch explain.
“It is not that God adds to his blessing no sorrow, much rather grants at the same time, a peaceful, joyful mind.”
“Much rather.”
As in, I’d much rather have peace in all this pain than anything else at all.
Anything else at all.
Much rather.
Peace.
Where is peace found in such pain?
Beside still waters, not torrential raging streams.
In a quiet place, far from the rapid pace.
C.H. Spurgeon was able to write “Beside Still Waters – Words of Comfort for the Soul” because “he experienced firsthand the darkness of personal depression, and he journeyed every day with his church members through a devasting plague of cholera and other harsh realities of life in Victorian England.”
Because we too have been there, done that; because we have experienced the sting of departure or death, there is a new emotion with which we stumblingly, haltingly sing, the words made more beautiful because the heart has been so broken.
So, dear reader, if you are there, or better yet, when you arrive, walk slowly, tread softly.
Go gently.
Thank you, Mr. Anderson, for this article. Your words rang true to my soul, with comfort. Because, you see, I am experiencing a similar sort of ‘grief’ related to my dementia-afflicted husband.
I always do a ‘quick scan’ of Suburban Times — to find your writing. I deeply appreciate your honesty, your gentle wisdom.