He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken with wormwood.
Wormwood is the image of bitterness and suffering, of sorrow and hardship as a bitter draught poured into the wine of life. Its bitterness is mingled with life's joys, so that sweet and bitter are drunk together from the same cup. That mingling is not by chance but by a wiser hand and a wiser care, and therefore the bitter portion is to be borne without rebellion and without laying blame on God. His purposes remain loving even when they cannot yet be understood, and are to be trusted in the darkness of the experience. This trust belongs especially to grief over the death of a loved one, when sorrow is heaviest and the temptation to question is strongest.
The same wormwood also describes joy turned suddenly into bitterness, when tidings of peace are mingled at once with grief. The draught is then made still more bitter by the rejoicing of those who committed the atrocity, whose triumph sharpens the sorrow of the afflicted.
Wormwood is the image of bitterness and suffering, of sorrow and hardship as a bitter draught poured into the wine of life. Its bitterness is mingled with life's joys, so that sweet and bitter are drunk together from the same cup. That mingling is not by chance but by a wiser hand and a wiser care, and therefore the bitter portion is to be borne without rebellion and without laying blame on God. His purposes remain loving even when they cannot yet be understood, and are to be trusted in the darkness of the experience. This trust belongs especially to grief over the death of a loved one, when sorrow is heaviest and the temptation to question is strongest.
The same wormwood also describes joy turned suddenly into bitterness, when tidings of peace are mingled at once with grief. The draught is then made still more bitter by the rejoicing of those who committed the atrocity, whose triumph sharpens the sorrow of the afflicted.