Fighting for Joy
It's been a while since I wrote; I didn't realize just how long until today. This fall has been very difficult emotionally - I shared some of that struggle in my last post. It's been a fight for joy. I've been sad and angry and despairing and feeling like I just can't take one more thing.
I've talked in the past about the privilege we have to suffer, because it draws us closer to Christ. Suffering marks you and shapes you and you are the better for it if you let God do His work. But I confess that I really felt like I had suffered enough. A tragic divorce, breast cancer at 31, a BRCA 2+ diagnosis, losing my ability to have children, and a terminal diagnosis at age 35 - that was my fair share. And more than my fair share, I felt.
I don't think I realized I felt this way until this fall, until I started dealing with some emotional hurt. I have said in the past that I'll take cancer over emotional pain any day. Sometimes I have even felt like God spared me by "only" asking me to walk through cancer. In His grace, He seemed to have given me an arena of suffering commensurate with my ability (through His strength). And I've been thankful. It's not easy, but He has equipped me and is walking me through it.
This heartache was something else altogether. And it didn't seem fair. Haven't I suffered enough already? How much can one person take? And really, shouldn't a cancer patient get a pass that guarantees people are nice to you?
We sang a beautiful song from this project at church one Sunday (song 8), which promises: "He [God] is weaving every thorn into a crown." And I dissolved into tears. This heartache felt like one thorn too many. Wasn't my crown already ringed with thorns? Why, o why, does my crown have so many thorns?? And why do others' seem to have so few? How could I possibly have joy when all these thorns are jabbing into my tender skull?
For my birthday, God used a sweet friend, who didn't even know the true extent of my lost joy, to give me a beautiful bracelet that simply says, "fullness of joy." That phrase is a beautiful wish, which actually comes from a verse in the Psalms (Psalm 16:11). The beginning of this phrase is "In His presence." "In His presence there is fullness of joy."
In His presence. His presence is everywhere. Psalm 139 tells us that God sees us wherever we are. There is nowhere we can go that He is not there. He knows every thought in our heads and every movement we make. So if God is everywhere, everywhere is a place where I can have fullness of joy.
If I cultivate His presence in my life, spend time with Him, seek His face, then no matter what my circumstances, I can have joy. If I don't feel joyful, I can change that by changing my position, by moving into His presence. Even if what seems like the very worst comes to pass - if I'm bedridden and alone, wracked with pain - I can have joy.
What a thought! My circumstances don't dictate my joy. Other people don't dictate my joy. I dictate my joy, by how closely I cling to my Father. I don't have to believe the lie that I am what I feel - I'm depressed, I'm anxious, I'm fearful. I can feel anxious, but I can be joyful. In a podcast I listened to today, someone said, "You can't let your feelings drive. They can ride in the car with you - you can feel them - but don't let them drive the car." Let joy drive your car and find that joy in His presence.
Obviously, this is something I'll have to train my mind and heart to do. I write these thoughts in an effort to process what God has been teaching me and to preach the gospel to myself. It feels like every minute of every day I forget His truth. I am comforted that even the apostle Paul felt this way: "Not that I have already reached the goal or am already perfect, but I make every effort to take hold of it because I also have been taken hold of by Christ Jesus. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do...I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God's heavenly call in Christ Jesus" (Phil. 3:12-14).
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P.S. My dear friend Andrea has been writing a series of posts about her own journey to walk beside me through my diagnosis. You can read them here: http://amcneely.blogspot.com/2017/12/when-your-kindred-spirit-has-terminal.html
I've talked in the past about the privilege we have to suffer, because it draws us closer to Christ. Suffering marks you and shapes you and you are the better for it if you let God do His work. But I confess that I really felt like I had suffered enough. A tragic divorce, breast cancer at 31, a BRCA 2+ diagnosis, losing my ability to have children, and a terminal diagnosis at age 35 - that was my fair share. And more than my fair share, I felt.
I don't think I realized I felt this way until this fall, until I started dealing with some emotional hurt. I have said in the past that I'll take cancer over emotional pain any day. Sometimes I have even felt like God spared me by "only" asking me to walk through cancer. In His grace, He seemed to have given me an arena of suffering commensurate with my ability (through His strength). And I've been thankful. It's not easy, but He has equipped me and is walking me through it.
This heartache was something else altogether. And it didn't seem fair. Haven't I suffered enough already? How much can one person take? And really, shouldn't a cancer patient get a pass that guarantees people are nice to you?
We sang a beautiful song from this project at church one Sunday (song 8), which promises: "He [God] is weaving every thorn into a crown." And I dissolved into tears. This heartache felt like one thorn too many. Wasn't my crown already ringed with thorns? Why, o why, does my crown have so many thorns?? And why do others' seem to have so few? How could I possibly have joy when all these thorns are jabbing into my tender skull?
For my birthday, God used a sweet friend, who didn't even know the true extent of my lost joy, to give me a beautiful bracelet that simply says, "fullness of joy." That phrase is a beautiful wish, which actually comes from a verse in the Psalms (Psalm 16:11). The beginning of this phrase is "In His presence." "In His presence there is fullness of joy."
In His presence. His presence is everywhere. Psalm 139 tells us that God sees us wherever we are. There is nowhere we can go that He is not there. He knows every thought in our heads and every movement we make. So if God is everywhere, everywhere is a place where I can have fullness of joy.
If I cultivate His presence in my life, spend time with Him, seek His face, then no matter what my circumstances, I can have joy. If I don't feel joyful, I can change that by changing my position, by moving into His presence. Even if what seems like the very worst comes to pass - if I'm bedridden and alone, wracked with pain - I can have joy.
What a thought! My circumstances don't dictate my joy. Other people don't dictate my joy. I dictate my joy, by how closely I cling to my Father. I don't have to believe the lie that I am what I feel - I'm depressed, I'm anxious, I'm fearful. I can feel anxious, but I can be joyful. In a podcast I listened to today, someone said, "You can't let your feelings drive. They can ride in the car with you - you can feel them - but don't let them drive the car." Let joy drive your car and find that joy in His presence.
Obviously, this is something I'll have to train my mind and heart to do. I write these thoughts in an effort to process what God has been teaching me and to preach the gospel to myself. It feels like every minute of every day I forget His truth. I am comforted that even the apostle Paul felt this way: "Not that I have already reached the goal or am already perfect, but I make every effort to take hold of it because I also have been taken hold of by Christ Jesus. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do...I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God's heavenly call in Christ Jesus" (Phil. 3:12-14).
-----------
P.S. My dear friend Andrea has been writing a series of posts about her own journey to walk beside me through my diagnosis. You can read them here: http://amcneely.blogspot.com/2017/12/when-your-kindred-spirit-has-terminal.html
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