The stewardship of our sorrows is about the trust we learn when we are cast upon God and God alone. If we know the character of God, if we know His nature, if we know HIM then this trust becomes possible. Before we can begin to trust our God in the depths of our darkest pain and suffering, we must learn who He is in the days of light. The problem we all face is source… from where do we get our information? How do we learn who our God is, so we know the shape of His face when we can no longer see? We learn it from His Word. We do not learn the nature and character of our God from our experience, we learn to correctly understand our experience by filtering it through the Word. It is in the Word that we learn what it is to praise Him, to know Him as God, to know Him as Lord and to trust Him as He alone deserves to be trusted. When we have learned who He is in the light, it becomes possible to find Him in the dark, in the blackest night of our unending sorrow and despair - Know this though: this is not the Christian-lite that is bandied about in this country, it is not shallow and vacuous. This is the substance of real life, of death and loss and despair so deep it cannot be plumbed… it is the power that sustains us when everything else fails. It is the glory of the God who IS. And we learn Him in little lessons that prepare us for the larger, which in turn show us how to stand when everything falls around us. Because this trust, this stewardship of sorrow, it aims us up, it brings us to the very arms of the Father, who reminds us that the darkest things we know in this life ONLY exist in THIS life. That there is more for us in His presence than we can possibly imagine and that He loves us despite what our circumstances tell us. This stewardship is what allows us to remember that no one can touch what is truly US when we are safe in the arms of the beloved. This is why we can hope, why we can sing, why we can sorrow with joy mixed in, for we know that because of the resurrection of Jesus, we have a hope that cannot be shaken; we KNOW that our God can be trusted to turn every sorrow to joy and to bring us safe to be with Himself when this life finds its end. Cast yourself upon the mercy of the God who loves you enough to store every one of your tears against a promised day of redemption. He ALONE can be trusted, He ALONE is worthy.