“Sorrows gather around great souls as storms do around mountains; but, like them, they break the storm and purify the air of the plain beneath them.”

— Jean Paul Richter

When the storms gather, some people crawl under the covers, pull them over their heads, and tremble with fear until the winds subside and the air is still again.  When the storms gather, some people sway like trees in the swirling winds, dodging left and right, hoping their roots will hold fast and suffering the wrath of a broken limb or two and the scars that mark them as survivors of the fierceness of nature’s wrath.  When the storms gather, some people stand firm and solid like the eternal mountains, trusting that even the most powerful storm is short-lived.  They emerge glistening with the renewed beauty of rain-washed rock, growing more beautiful with each passing rain.

When sorrow first touched me, it carried me away like a leaf on the wind.  I buried my head beneath my pillow and trembled for fear that the storm would rage forever.  Long after the storm had subsided, I feared its return; and I lived as though the storm still raged although its fury had passed.  When the next storm arrived, I stood like a tree.  I braced myself against the wind and winced as the driving rain pelted me and tore at my bark.  With everything in me, I raged against the storm, summoning fury that equaled its wrath.  I ducked and I dodged and I writhed and I wailed, and the battle cracked my limbs and scarred me with the marks of a soldier who has fought a great war.

Now I have lived through many sorrows.  I have learned that it is the fear of the storm that has hurt me the most.  I have learned that even the most ferocious storm has a beginning and an end.  There will always be storms, and there will always be sorrows.  They will come and go, and life will go on in spite of their fury.  I have learned that they will blow my leaves away.  It will hurt for a time, but I will go on without them until the time comes to grow them again.  I will lose a branch or two, but the pruning will make my load lighter and strengthen my roots; and I will live to see another season.  As the years have passed, I no longer run and hide.  I no longer rage and fight in ways that deplete my energy to get on with the business of living.  My roots have turned to stone; and I stand like a mountain.  I know that I cannot call the sorrow, and I know that I cannot send it away.  When the wind blows, I stand still and let it carry away the things I no longer need.  When the rains shed their tears, I let them run down my rocky shoulders and leave me gleaming and restored and unchanged, but transformed.