From the sun there comes warmth and brightness and laughter and growth and dry spells and heat. But as I sat here thinking to myself, what does the sun stand for me? I heard loud and clear the word joy.
And joy means a great deal of happiness. It’s not your average smile or laugh. It’s the hurt your cheeks belly laugh kind of happiness that is only ever truly expressed when nothing but joy is filling your soul.
But what happens when you refuse to let that joy escape?
Because for me, I had lived a very large portion of my life fearful of showing any sign of individual happiness. I can’t tell you exactly why but all I knew was that I thought some things were appropriate to be joyful about and others…not so much.
And as I sit here thinking about what joy means to me in my life, I see how far I’ve grown from that person described above, how much this gift of having joy has come from Christ, and how I can sometimes still hide it today.
The Growth. Honestly, I was terrified of showing too many happy emotions outside of my family and closest friends from about first grade until my sophomore year of college. Maybe a little bit was from being scared of what others may think, but in all honesty, I think a lot came from not really knowing who I was. And until I found that out and became secure of my identity in Christ, I was scared of being anything at all.
The Gift. This section is the most amazing section I will write out because this section contains the most freedom and the most healing. It contains not only the gift of joy but also one of purpose.
But to backup a bit. From 2012-2014, I began along a path that led to strong isolation, and overwhelming, hindering grief. I sought after worldly success and actually obtained a lot of that. But nothing satisfied that longing for a purpose that I was searching for. I found myself asking the question “What is the purpose to this life?” over and over and over again– coming up with nothing every time. I was living in grief and had tricked myself into thinking I was fighting it.
The truth about unhealthy grief is that it makes you feel like you shouldn’t be sad at all, but at the same time it also makes you feel guilty when you do experience any sort of happiness. So that’s where I was, stuck in this invisible force of guilt and shame for feeling all the wrong things.
Unhealthy guilt is there to encompass your life. It is vain and always wants to be on your mind. It is deceiving and feeds off of deprecating thoughts.
But in God, there is no condemnation (Romans 8:1). There is no shame in sadness or happiness, only comfort. There is no bondage, only freedom. There is no vanity, only love.
In the fall of 2014, God granted me overwhelming peace. Not only from what happened in the past, but also from what took place in my heart. He healed the sickness from my grief and gave me something anew.
It was the gift of healthy grief. It was the gift of joy. And it was the gift of purpose.
Now, I still live with grief. And forever, I will live with grief. But instead of the kind above, it is now stained by sheer love that nothing can wipe away. And so what it brings it brings out of love. When I feel sad, it is because I love. When I am happy it is because I love. When I feel anything, it’s just a reminder that I love.
And now, I live with a purpose. And that’s to live my life for Christ. To become like Him. To love Him supremely and others sacrificially. I no longer strive to be satisfied by what I myself can accomplish but already am by what He already has.
And lastly, I live with more joy than I ever imagined possible. For those two years of my life, I truly wondered whether or not my life would have any trace of happiness to it. I thought it not to be possible. But God has placed in my heart a start-dancing-around-the-room type of joy for ordinary things and little amusements and good weather and just whatever really. I feel as though this may be just a token of love from God.
The Glitch: Hidden in pockets and moments, behind smiles or small jumps when I really want to dance and leap and beam from ear to ear. Sometimes old habits conquer new freedoms and I still fear to feel. But then I stop and think and my mind goes to Acts 3. In this passage, the disciples healed a man that was lame from birth. When the man stood up, he immediately began leaping and praising God. He literally LEAPT. It’s biblical. My desire to express joy in an over the top kind of way is okay. And it’s okay if I’m the only one who finds something to be as joyful as I do. Because what happens next in the story is others around him see his joy and are filled with wonder and amazement for what had happened to him.
Others gain when you release the joy God has gifted you.
And the few “appropriate” things are not nearly enough– not nearly at all.
God has gifted me the ability to be joyful when a lot of times I am clouded by circumstances to not be. And to be honest, even healthy grief is hard. It’s still an all the time, all consuming, always on your mind kind of hard. But God has gifted me this soul lifting response to some pretty mundane things. And I won’t let suppression of that response win any longer. I will express this gift and share it with others.
“Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.” – Luke 6:21b
