Sorrow is Better Than Laughter

No one likes to go through hard times and heart ache. Some times I wish life could always be happy with no rough spots, but I'm not expecting that to happen until I go home to Heaven.

Another hard time has come to a family around us and those who care for them. I cannot imagine what it would be like to loose a little baby only 3 weeks old, and I don't ever want to experience it. Our pastor has been very compassionate and helpful during this time, not only to the family but to his church. Tonight he read several scriptures concerning sorrow and how we should take it. It all made so much sense yet I had never thought of it that way before.

"A good name is better than precious ointment; and the day of death than the day of one's birth. It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting: for that is the end of all men; and the living will lay it to his heart. Sorrow is better than laughter: for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better. The heart of the wise is in the
house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth." ~Ecclesiastes 7:1-4

"Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness." ~James 4:9

"He [Jesus] is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not." ~Isaiah 53:3

It is not a bad thing to grieve. We are commanded to weep with those who weep, and rejoice with those who rejoice. But like I told the heartbroken mother tonight, we need to be thankful that we have God to help us bear our burdens. I can't imagine bearing them alone!