Space for Sorrow

Give sorrow all the space and shelter in yourself that is its due, for if everyone bears 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 the 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.

- Etty Hillesum

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