18 February 2009

Old email, old friend...

I was cleaning out my Inbox today (obviously a busy day at work), when I came across the following quote from dear Lil' Kim (love how you keep coming up in my blog while many miles away). I have yet to read the book, or anything from the author for that matter, but I intend to.

"Our cup is often so full of pain that joy seems completely unreachable. When we are crushed like grapes, we cannot think of the wine we will become. The sorrow overwhelms us, makes us throw ourselves on the ground, face down, and sweat drops of blood. Then we need to be reminded that our cup of sorrow is also our cup of joy and that one day we will be able to taste the joy as fully as we now taste the sorrow...Jesus' unconditional yes to this Father had empowered him to drink his cup not in passive resignation but with the full knowledge that the hour of his death would also be the hour of his glory...Joys are hidden in sorrows! We keep forgetting this truth and become overwhelmed by our own darkness. We easily lose sight of our joys and speak of our sorrows as the only reality there is. We need to remind each other... that precisely what causes us sadness can become the fertile ground for gladness... Because only when we fully realize that the cup of life is not only a cup of sorrow but also a cup of joy will we be able to drink it."

In Can You Drink the Cup? by Henri Nouwen