Joy

Sometimes I have to sit in really, really hard meetings. Sometimes we give parents bad news from test results....and there aren't any right words to say. Some of the hardest are when an IQ test comes back, and the child scores below 70. I can't tell you how many times I have been at a table with a parent who is crying, wondering what the future will hold for her baby, and someone from the school will offer weakly, "The good news is, your child will probably always be happy."
I can't tell you how often I've left those meetings, thinking that that is good news indeed!! And true! Wouldn't it be nice to almost always be happy? And not be living in denial, either....just truly happy? It's funny how cliches become cliches. There's a nugget of truth in the statement, "Ignorance is bliss."
Sometimes I wonder why, if "happy" and "bliss" were so high on the desired characteristic list, they're not more evenly distributed by natural selection. That is, there's a very small percentage of the population with IQ's below 70. What are the rest of us to do?? Just muddle through the best we can? Simply survive this messy place called life, all downtrodden and schlumpy?

I've been thinking about joy, and how it compares with happiness. Joy is a fruit of the Spirit. The evidence that the Spirit of God lives within us. Joy is not reserved for a minority of the population, but is an expectation of all who have received Christ. But how? How are we to always have joy? Sometimes life is just hard! Sometimes you're fighting in the war against sin and temptation and....yuck....and you're just plain getting whipped. Sometimes someone you love is the one getting pummeled. How do we face the world, with all of its trials, unfairness, oily seepage, lack of integrity and just dirty old grit, and do it with authentic joy?

Here are some Scriptures I've been thinking about lately:

Psalm 97:11-12 - "Light is shed upon the righteous and joy on the upright in heart. Rejoice in the LORD, you who are righteous, and praise his holy name."

Psalm 118:24 - "This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it."

Proverbs 15:13 - "A happy heart makes the face cheerful, but heartache crushes the spirit."

Proverbs 17:22 - "A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones."

Isaiah 35:10 - "And the ransomed of the LORD will return. They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away."

Isaiah 55:12 - "You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands."

John 16:22 - "So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy."

John 16:33--"I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world."

I guess it's the last two that I'm most taken with right now. My worry, my sorrow, my ache....they're real. I'd be lying if I were to pretend otherwise. We've all got those battles we fight; those cares that we carry. But they're temporary. They're small bumps in the long road that will be this life, followed by eternity. Navigating through the bumps is overwhelming. Personally, I fail more often than I succeed. I'm irrevocably and wholly screwed up, you see. No kidding. My native language is sin. And it looked so much EASIER when my faithful grandparents or personal heroes were walking their own walks! How come they didn't fall down as much as I do???
But I have HOPE. I have Hope. No one can take away that kind of Joy. I'm looking forward to feeling it, again, too, and not just knowing it.

"........But take heart, because I have overcome the world."
Now THAT's something to be joyful about! :)