Joy comes to those who search for it.

I met someone today who told me about his difficult times six years ago when he was involved in a divorce. Dark, depressive thoughts overshadowed his existence. Now, six years later, having met someone whom he loves greatly, he can hardly imagine those extremely negative experiences which brought his into a deep depression – they now seem so unreal to him.

In his life joy and sadness are clearly closely linked. Like many, as we saw in the blog yesterday, he also experienced how his life offers both its sad and its joyful moments. This is real: life is not only about joy. Faith is not only triumphant. It fails and it know unhappiness. At that time, though, he seemed to have lost this perspective. For him life was simply a prolonged, sad experience.

The point is whether we allow our sadness to overshadow our existence. Often we allow our deep thoughts to dominate what we feel and how we live. We cannot relativise our feelings. It is difficult to say to ourselves: “but one day there will be the good times again.”

Our life is about much more than the sadness and unhappiness that we must occasionally experience. Life is about denying sadness the upper hand. It is about challenging ourselves not to become a victim of our disappointments.

This is easier said than done. My friend would not have appreciated it if someone told him six years ago not to worry since there will be good times again in the future. He would not have liked to hear that he is too overwhelmed and obsessed by his negative feelings.

But then, what does one do in such times other than sharing one’s grief with God and thus moves away from grief? As we experience deep inner anguish and loneliness, we may feel abandoned by God and all else. But these negative feelings bring us to seek God so that we can be reunited with the divine presence.

On the one hand, one could accept such times as part of life and then see it as a challenge which one should face and which one should see as a time to be stripped from everything which keeps one from seeking God. This means letting our sadness go, allocating to them only a restricted place in our lives.

Or we can also see these times as the divine invitation to seek God as the Father who cares for those who are unhappy. One needs to enter the sphere of Fatherly love, to seek the intimate closeness to God, so that one can be touched by the divine joy. It may be difficult to seek God since we are so overwhelmed by our loneliness and sadness. We become so preoccupied by these negative feelings that it is difficult to break away from them.

And yet, this is what we need to do – to seek God’s presence which brings us inner peace and joy. For many who suffer such negative feelings, the road to healing will be steep. Searching in God does not always mean that we will experience joy instantly.

Most probably we shall find that our healing takes a long time and comes gradually. As we seek God in our sadness, it may be that we experience but one tiny moment of graceful joy and sense of belonging with God who cares for us, only to feel much sadness again. It is like a journey per foot on a road by night without any light. We walk carefully and haltingly. But then a car speeds by and we see that we are still on the right road and we recognize the direction in whcih we should travel. That one moment of light brings a sense of direction in our lives.The one moment of joy may bring the relief and begin the process of healing.

Relief from sadness does not always come easily. But when we search for it, we shall not be disappointed. Joy comes only to those who reach out to it....

Often as we walk through dark days, we despair. But then invariably, later on we say: if I now look back I can only say that it was by the grace of God....

Our sadness should not speak the last word in our lives.