“Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning,” (Psalms 30:5). Sadness may at times be painful, but that doesn't automatically mean that it is bad. After all, lots of things that are good for us are also painful. Working out can be painful. Eating our vegetables can be painful. Doing our chores can be painful. But all of those things help contribute to our overall health and well-being. If we're not careful, we can sometimes get our causality mixed up when it comes to sadness and the dark times we so often face when we are sad. It is not night because we are sad, but rather we have our sadness to help carry us through the darkness so that we with our weeping may endure the night. Yes, joy cometh in the morning, but happiness is something of a fair-weather friend. Joy is all too eager to frolic with us through the sunlit slopes where everything is bright and breezy, but it is sadness that keeps us company when we are wading through the deep blackness of the abyss. Sadness is an integral part of our human experience. Ever since Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, “all humans”, to quote Eleanor Shellstrop from The Good Place, “are aware of death. So... we're just a little bit sad, all the time. That's just the deal.” God gave us the capacity to feel sadness so that when we are faced with staggering loss and there are none to comfort us, we at least still have our sadness to help us make it through the night. Christ Himself did not shy away from tears. He wept with His friends when they were sad beyond measure and even now, He weeps with us when we are faced with the bleak prospect of a long, dark night. I know that God created us so that we might have joy, but He also gave us sadness, and especially the Man of Sorrows, acquainted with grief, so that we might endure all of the nights when joy is temporarily out of our reach. Joy will come again, but until the dawn breaks, let us give ourselves permission to weep, that we may endure the night.
