Grief to Joy
How does one come to joy from a place of grief? I don’t know if it is because today is a perfect fall day where I live or whether time has begun to heal a wound, a wound caused by deep loss, but today is the first day I feel like I am coming alive after my sister passed over a month ago. I know I will continue to have days where I fluctuate between grief and peace, but I am beginning to feel a bit of sunshine within. I am becoming interested in things again (including this ministry). I wanted to share another article my sister, Lynn, wrote back in January of this year on Joy and what that really means. Can we experience grief and joy? I believe we can if we understand what joy means to God and what He means it to be for us. I hope my sister’s thoughts bless you today.
-Tonya Noren, 11/3/20
Joy
Joy: What is it? Jumping for joy? A quiet happy feeling of wellbeing? A choice? All three?
Joy is a fruit of the spirit; a gift from God. It is a gift of the savior but the prophets also had joy knowing of him and loving God as they spread the word about him. As we move about in a world that is often joyless, offensive, frightening or even just a little unsettling, how do we continue to have Joy? Paul was in prison but chose joy because he knew, even then, God was with him.
What do we do? We choose joy and pray for it, not only for ourselves but to have joy for a joyless world.
I spent my whole life unable to find joy, when I did find it I could not sustain it because it was a cheap, worldly version set up to make me satisfied for a time. Joy, without God in the middle of it, is fleeting. God has healed me prompting a consistent feeling of joy, reminding me to be giving and joyful.
I am a woman of simple thoughts and needs. It was not always this way. Though I loved God and was a believer, I ran crazy through my life, under my own thoughts and desires. I even talked myself into events that I wanted to be God-breathed but were not. In my case God brought my crazy thought life to a very abrupt halt; in one moment. It was shocking, life-changing and I thought I was lost because God allowed Satan to attack me (in a place unexpected and in a moment). God healing me was gut-wrenching and at first, I did not recognize Him in it. But, then I saw Him. I felt Him AND I recognized Him. I am healed from a lifetime of pain. Over these two to three years God has introduced me to grace and joy; not just head knowledge but heart knowledge. I have no resentment, no regrets; just a simple but overwhelming love of Jesus and his people that fills me with joy.
We all have painful things that shape who we are, who we become and how we interact with the world.
So, again what is joy? Joy is letting go. Every time you’re hanging on to something that you know is not good or is best, joy falls to the wayside. Let it go… joy will leak into your spirit and become a phenomenal thing that you do not have to seek, but that seeks you. God will guide you in this. Just ask.
“Joy is the settled assurance that God is in control of all the details of my life, the quiet confidence that ultimately everything is going to be alright, and the determined choice to praise God in every situation.” (Rick Warren) Praising God can be through songs of worship, prayer, community prayer such as church and any number of other things. I even work for God now, not my company.
I think that joy is a healthy current of underlying excitement for what God is doing and what He will do next. This is without considering your actual circumstances. My life-saving scripture is Romans 8:35-39: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:
‘For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.’
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
(Other) scriptures of joy: Psalms 30:5, Isaiah 12:3, Jeremiah 33:11, Matthew 2:10, Roman 15:32.
God loves you, as much as me; even, yes even, if you do not love him.
What is your joy?
Lynn E. Keough
January 21, 2020
In memoriam: Lynn E. Keough – 4/21/62 - 9/29/20
Personal references have been removed from this article to protect privacy.