Bury Thy Sorrow

Go bury thy sorrow, the world hath its share;
Go bury it deeply, go hide it with care.
Go think of it calmly, when curtained by night;
Go tell it to Jesus, and all will be right.

Go tell it to Jesus, He knoweth thy grief;
Go tell it to Jesus, He’ll send thee relief;
Go gather the sunshine He sheds on the way:
He’ll lighten thy burden—Go, weary one, pray.

Hearts growing aweary with heavier woe
Now droop ’mid the darkness—Go, comfort them, go!
Go bury thy sorrow, let others be blessed;
Go give them the sunshine, tell Jesus the rest.

"The au­thor of the hymn was the daugh­ter of a min­is­ter. When she wrote these lines she was liv­ing with her bro­ther, whom she great­ly loved. He also was a min­is­ter, and had the usu­al cares and bur­dens to car­ry that are in­ci­dent to a pas­tor’s life. To him she con­fid­ed all her joys and sor­rows. One day, af­ter hav­ing dis­closed to him some pe­cul­iar tri­al which she was en­dur­ing, she was re­proached by her con­science for hav­ing need­less­ly add­ed to his al­ready num­er­ous cares. She stood by the open win­dow, and saw the long, hea­vy sha­dows cast by the tall pop­lar trees across the lawn, and the thought came to her:

“That is just what I have done to my brother! Why did I do it? Why did I not ra­ther bu­ry my own sor­row, and al­low on­ly words of cheer and bright­ness to reach his ears?”

With such thoughts in her mind, and with tears of re­gret fill­ing her eyes, she re­tired to her lit­tle at­tic bed­room, and there wrote the hymn above."

O! How this makes should make us realize how selfish we can sometimes be! We can be so wrapped up in our own sorrows, that we never look to see whether others are suffering or not, and we needlessly put more on their burden by unloading ours upon them!

This young woman obviously had a selfless demeanor. I do so earnestly wish that I could assume such a position. To abandon our sorrows, and comfort and encourage those around us in whatever grief they might be feeling, would be a way to be looking to the interests of others, as it says in Philippians 2:4.

There are many times when we undergo trials and tribulations of many kinds. Take the instance of Cyrano de Bergerac... the play. He falls in love with the beautiful Roxane, but he is asked to woo her for a more handsome, but less articulate young man, Christian. Cyrano does this, and wins the heart of Roxane... but not for himself—for Christian. The young couple are married and live happily, but Cyrano sacrificed his love for Roxane in order that Christian would be enabled to marry her. He buried his own sorrow deep within his heart, and performed an act of love towards Roxane by wooing her for the man that she would love and be happy with. (Now I'm finding it hard to articulate... I can't seem to say very well what it is I want to say.. :P)

But back to the hymn...

I know from experience that when any member in the family is not happy, it affects everybody else's mood. However, if that person, no matter what they were going through, could offer a cheerful and good-natured word, then who knows what encouragement it would bring! This brings to mind the verse to a poem...

"The ill-timed truth we might have kept—
Who knows how sharp it pierced and stung!
The word we had not sense to say —
Who knows how grandly it had rung!"

I can't seem to express my thoughts the way I want to. That's rather frustrating, you know. But I want to say something along the lines of this...

The people who truly love you care about you (obviously). So, when you are undergoing some affliction, it will matter to them. They will not just pass it by indifferently, but they will fervently pray for you, they will worry about you. And sometimes, you might unburden yourself so much that you never even think of what might be occurring in their soul. They might be happy to simply have you be oblivious to their affliction, but how much better it would be to listen then to talk, to encourage rather than complain! Some people hide their sorrow so well that you would never guess what affliction is occurring in the labyrinth of their soul. Some make their sorrow public. But even so! Whatever it is, we should always seek to be attentive, and to encourage and comfort where it might be needed. :)

But anyhow... I just had some thoughts on that subject that I wanted to share. :)