Grief and Joy

Perfect joy could not be joy alone but must be a joy that somehow contains our past grief and sadness and longing. – Jessica Mesman Griffith, Love and Salt

To really grieve for something is to have truly valued it, for if we grieve not for a thing lost, we have not found that thing at all.

We can console ourselves by saying that what’s truly important is the journey, and the time of togetherness, but deep within our hearts, we ask, “What good is our time of meeting if sooner or later, we must part?”

Those who say it is but sufficient to love for a moment have not truly loved, for love always desires to last forever. It isn’t enough to have loved for a single day. It isn’t enough to love for a lifetime. It isn’t enough to love for ten thousand years. If we truly love, we want to love without end for only in love is there life.

Grieve if you must, for it has shown that you have loved. We grieve as much as we have been made happy. We grieve as much as we have been made alive.

Grief is our bridge towards joy – joy that has passed, and joy that is to come. Only those who grieve desire to hope, for hope is our only consolation in our time of parting. With God, we know that we do not hope in vain for time shall surely come when our grief shall turn to joy again and that joy can never ever be taken away!

Therefore you now have sorrow, but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you. – John 16:22, WEB-BE

Check Jocelyn's books:

"Of Waves and Butterflies: Poems on Grief", "Mend My Broken Heart", "Questions to God", "To Love an Invisible God", "Defending My Catholic Faith", and more - click here.

(You may freely quote excerpts from this website as long as due credit is given to author Jocelyn Soriano and the website itakeoffthemask.com)