There’s an old Arab proverb that says: ‘All sunlight makes a desert.’ Most of us love the sunshine and find more than a day of rain and overcast skies quite depressing. But when the rain doesn’t come, the sunshine becomes a curse. Sir Alfred Elgar was once asked to listen to a girl sing. She had a gorgeous voice and her technique was faultless. But to Elgar she just missed greatness. His judgement was: ‘She will be great – when something happens to break her heart.’
The universal human experience is that sorrow teaches us what we would never otherwise know. It is in sorrow that we learn what things really matter in life, and what do not. We can never really find healing until we have felt and accepted sorrow. That’s why Jesus said: ‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.’