Give Your Sorrow Space
by Etty Hillesum
You must be able to bear your sorrow; even if it seems to crush you,
you will be able to stand up again, for human beings are so strong,
and your sorrow must become an integral part of yourself, part of
your body and your soul, you mustn’t run away from it, but bear it
like an adult….
Give your sorrow all the space and shelter in yourself that is its due,
for if everyone bears his grief honestly and courageously, the sorrow
that now fills the world will abate.
But if you do not clear a decent shelter for your sorrow, and instead
reserve most of the space inside you for hatred and thoughts of
revenge—from which new sorrows will be born for others—then sorrow
will never cease in this world and will multiply. And if you have given
sorrow the space its gentle origins demand, then you may truly say:
life is beautiful and so rich.
So beautiful and so rich that it makes you want to believe in God.
Source: An Interrupted Life, via inward/outward
