SO MANY YEARS. . . .so many months. . .hours. . . .minutes . . .and not all of them happy.  Count them up – perhaps the sorrows outweigh the joys.  It’s strange how one joy can cancel out many sorrows!

The past year seemed to add up more sorrows than joys…nothing evened out when I tried the system of one joy canceling out three sorrows.  But the thought came to me as a bright diamond in the dark….these sorrows MAY bring joy SOMEDAY.

When a mother holds her infant until the five-o’clock hour of the dawn as the baby fights for the breath of life…I shall be able to say “take my hand….I understand your anxiety”….when a family lays away a beloved member and the tears fall, fall freely, and they long for a view of a rainbow…I will be able to say, “I’ll cry with you…hold my hand…I’ve walked this way before.”  When the heart is bound with grief-a sorrow so deeply hidden within because of a prodigal child…I will say, “Yes, take my hand, I too have walked this way before.”  When a mother sits by the hospital bed of her near grown child as he struggles to hold onto the thread of life…I will softly whisper, “Here…hold my hand let’s share together.”

When dreams lie shattered in the dust…the dreams of years of planning and waiting-and the future seems dark, I will say, “Take my hand, I have walked this way before.”

But someday the dawn will break and I shall see the rainbows and the long journey’s end and I reach the moment we all must face when eternity looms out ahead, I am sure at a second’s fraction of time I will reach out and someone will take my hand and say, “I’ve walked this way before – come follow me.”

And this one final joy will cancel out all sorrows.

Ione Denton

from My Alabaster Box