Your Sorrow will turn into joy
Thursday, 6th week in Eastertide
Acts 18: 1-18; Jn 16: 16-20
Your Sorrow will turn into joy, the Lord promises! At times it seems a lofty promise and many look at it suspiciously. That is not because the Lord is wrong today, but our understanding of true joy is not right at times!
Ever heard of the anecdote about this monk who went into contemplation and came out "enlightened"? Since everyone considered him "enlightened", a man approached him with a question...what difference do you find between the world as it was when you went into contemplation a decade ago and that of today? He said, "when I went in the land was down and the sky was up there, there was summer and winter, and there was day and night." "And Now?", the questioner asked with curiosity rising! "Now the land is down and the sky is up there, there is summer and there is winter and there is night and there is day!"
Are you wondering that the story is incomplete if I end it there? No! The fact is, even if things remain the same, the way enlightened persons see them is completely different from the way others see it! Your sorrow will turn to joy, not only because everything around you will turn upside down, but because you will find yourself different, your priorities different, your concerns different. That will make all the difference! When they rejected Paul outright, he couldn't care less! He was just the same and walked off cool, because for him that rejection mattered nothing!
For him sorrows had turned into joy, everything was joyful for in everything he sought the Lord!