Joyful Ruins

I remember a few years ago at church the pastor preached on joy. At one point he had us turn to one another and share about someone we knew who was truly joyful. My friend kindly turned to me and told me I was that person for her. I honestly felt some pride at hearing that, for I wanted people to see me as joyful and I believed I was truly joyful in many ways.

Not long after that moment, I found myself with mild depression, having a panic attack on my bathroom floor, and seriously struggling to have even a slight ounce of joy.

The smiling face remained because I did not want to shame God’s good name by seeming joyless (this is an entire other lie I need to work through). I still haven’t returned to that joyful woman whom my friend saw and I have since wiped the smile off my face because it takes too much energy when life is a series of targeted blows.

Something I have come to understand better though, is that my “joy” before was based on worldly thoughts and things. I was “joyful” to impress others. I was “joyful” to impress God. I was “joyful” because life hadn’t been that hard to me. I am using quotations around joyful because I am not sure I knew what joy was. I had heard in the church repeatedly that joy was found in God, not circumstances, but only life’s sorrow could teach me what Godly joy truly was.

I do not pretend to have learned joy to its depths. I do not pretend the path to joy is easy or smooth.

The joy I had before was immature and shakable. I do not look down upon that kind of joy, but it is a joy that must grow and deepen at some point.

Now, I’m learning about a joy that is deeper, sharper, and in tandem with grief.

Joy does not ignore the reality of pain, loss, or evil in this world. It chooses to sing louder than it. And the louder song is not always an upbeat tune… in fact, I believe it’s an aching ballad most of our life because sorrows will always be present while joy simultaneously sings along.

I honestly do not understand the gift of joy but it is a gift from God. Somehow, in the midst of strife, a very real and gritty joy abounds.

There’s a place of accepting life for what it is, whether sorrowful or glorious, most likely a mix of both. There’s peace in choosing to sing even when it hurts.

Perhaps I am talking in circles when all I want to say is, there is a mature unshakeable joy you can gradually find in suffering.

That’s where joyful ruins come into play (Isaiah 51:3). How can you be in ruins and be joyful? How can death lead to resurrection? It’s the mystery of God’s kingdom that these opposite powers can come together and produce spiritual joy.

I don’t want to go back to that old Jessica, though many around me do. They want me to be better tomorrow. They want me to smile and nod. They want me at church serving exhaustedly when the reality is, I have nothing left to give and need desperately to receive. They want me to say that it is well with my soul as a Band-Aid, not as a truth.

But I want to work through the pain to receive lasting joy. I want to be real and honest in my grief so I can find joy deeply planted, even in the darkness. I want to be weary and troubled so I may rest and receive Christ’s light and easy yoke. I want to meet with others, not with a false grin on my face, but with a compassionate gleam in my eye that reminds them that Jesus cares about every moment of their life. I want the full work of Christ to be done through sickness so I may come out the other side looking more like Him.

This is the work of sorrow in my life, to bring about a joy that is soft, gritty, one that stands through pain because it does not ignore it, and joy in which only the Lord could work in me.

This joy is like the beauty of the light shining through dark clouds. Unobscured sunshine is beautiful, but the shafts of light that fall down on us in the midst of rain clouds gives us a taste of heaven.