Welcome to today's encouragement from our daily bread.

I'm Amy Boucher Pie, and I titled today's article, Sorrow and Joy.

Angela's family reeled with sorrow as they experienced three bereavements in just four weeks.

After the one involving the sudden death of their nephew,

Angela and her two sisters gathered around the kitchen table for three days,

only leaving to buy an urn, get takeout, and attend the funeral.

As they wept over his death, they also rejoiced over the ultrasound photos of the new life growing within their youngest sister. In time, Angela found comfort

and hope from the Old Testament book of Ezra. It describes God's people returning to Jerusalem after the Babylonians destroyed the

temple and deported them from their beloved city. As Ezra watched the temple being rebuilt,

he heard joyful praises to God, but he also listened to the weeping of those who remembered life

before exile. One verse in chapter three

especially consoled Angela. No one could distinguish the sound of the shouts of joy from the

sound of weeping because the people made so much noise. She realized that even if she was

drenched in deep sorrow, joy could still appear.

We too might grieve the death of a loved one or mourn a different loss.

If so, we can express our cries of pain along with our moments of rejoicing to God,

knowing that he hears us and gathers us in his arms.

Today's Our Daily Bread Devotional Scripture reading is from Ezra chapter 3,

verses 8 through 13. In the second month of the second year, after their arrival at the House of God in

Jerusalem, Zerububable, son of Shiatiel, Joshua, son of Jawsadak, and the rest of the people,

the priests and the Levites and all who had returned from the captivity to Jerusalem, began the

work. They appointed Levites 20 years old and

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