Everything happens for a reason

Today I had to come home a little early to meet someone at my flat.  While I waited, I hopped on google-chat and was gifted with the pleasure of a little 'heya!' from a lovely friend who used to live in Brussels...then moved to Amsterdam...and is currently working in Mozambique.  She sent along her non-blog.  What's a non-blog?  I didn't know either.  Basically, in the olden days, we may have called it a letter? An update?  In electronic form, however.  Adobe Acrobat, to be exact.

I just sat down on the couch with a cup of rooibos--my new favorite drink of choice. (Sidenote: I always liked rooibos, but didn't love it.  However, now it is linked to many happy memories in Africa, so it's my current fave....plus, no caffeine!)--and started reading of her adventures in Mozambique, including this incredibly amazing quote:

“God has created me to do some definite service; he has committed some work to me, that he has not committed to another…I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good. I shall do his work…Therefore I will trust him, whatever, wherever I am. I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness will serve him; in perplexity, my perplexity will serve him; in sorrow, my sorrow will serve him. He does nothing in vain. He knows what he is about. He may take away my friend, he may throw me among strangers, he may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide my future from me – still he knows what he is about.” ~ Cardinal Newman

Oh how I love this thought...what especially caught my breath was the idea of my sorrow serving him. It's not so hard to imagine my sorrow over injustice in the world, for example, serving him. But right now I feel a little bit like my heart could break. Can even that kind of sorrow serve him? Sure hope so...would make me feel a lot better about the ache in my chest and the tears that keep falling from my eyes...cuz 'still he knows what he is about.'