From “On the Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity, and Getting Old” by Parker J. Palmer
The good news is that suffering can be transformed into something that brings life, not death. It happens every day. At my age, I know many people who’ve suffered the loss of the dearest person in their lives. At first, they go into deep grief, certain that their lives will never again be worth living. But then they slowly awaken to the fact that – not in spite of their loss but because of it – they’ve become bigger, more compassionate people with more capacity of heart to take in other people’s sorrows and joys.
These are brokenhearted people, but their hearts have been broken open rather than broken apart. So every day, exercise your heart by taking in life’s pains and joys. That kind of exercise will make your heart supple, so that when it breaks – which it surely will – it will break not into a fragment grenade but into a greater capacity for love.