On a Year of Joy

My 2018 word of the year was Joy. I still love reading how I shared it with you a year ago. I can hear the excitement in the words. I think I bought every piece of art that used the word joy this year.

When I chose “Joy” as my word of the year for 2018, I thought it would be fun. A year of celebration and happiness, for example. Or a year full of flowers and sunshine and chocolate and naps (preferably, all at the same time). A year of lovely rest.And yes, this year was pretty happy. We’re in a really good place. I love my work. My husband loves his work. We have seen some amazing answers to prayer in our family. God has provided the support He knew I needed. We took a couple of great vacations, and we found rest. Parenting a quick-witted little problem solver can be a source of enormous delight. There has been much joy in 2018.

But easy?

Not so much, my friend.

It turns out, I need to understand joy better. Joy that means contentment, despite disappointment and trials. Joy that feeds endurance. Joy that is deep-rooted peace.“Consider it pure joy…” says James, as he starts out his letter to the God’s people, scattered abroad in places and circumstances they probably never wanted to be. Unfortunately, he doesn’t follow those words with “when you succeed” or “when everything comes together the way you’d hoped.” Instead, he writes “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds…”.

Well, then.

When I face trials of many kinds, I have some natural responses. I think they’re hard-wired fight or flight responses, and we all have our own versions of them.My first is despair – a type of flight. The other is to tackle it head on and wrestle that thing to the ground – full-on fight. Sometimes, I just try to walk away from it – like our fire alarm telling us to FLEE! FLEE! This year so far, I’ve seen myself do all three.And some of these trials have been so ridiculous that they've had me shaking my head in disbelief.

For example...

The carpet saga of 2017 / 2018. Last year, we had lovely, plush carpet installed. It was during a season of home renos that required a fierce hearted Wonder Woman, and was a massive job – emptying out cupboards and closets, hauling dozens of boxes, and even selling furniture to make it possible. It may have been easier to just move to a new house. When it was done, and everything was cleaned up though, it was glorious. We walked beautifully barefoot on that luxurious-feeling carpet every day and swore we’d never do that again. Never.

Then, we found out that the carpet we had installed was defective, and needed to be replaced.

All. Of. It.

Every closet. All the rooms. ALL 1,100 SQUARE FEET.So, I packed it all up again. Slugging and hauling and cleaning and then had to put everything back again.We HATED IT, but we did it.And guess what? CARPET INSTALL #2 WAS ALSO DEFECTIVE. The manufacturer said it was like being hit with lightning twice (which actually happened to my Uncle Walter, so it’s a family thing, I guess.)

For a third time, I had to reschedule my life, totally disrupt our family, traumatize our cat, and pack up our life again. Again. And then, after carpet install #3 was in, I had to clean and put everything back. Again.

Mercy.

Not to mention, I had fallen down these lovely / miserable carpeted stairs in June and sustained a significant concussion, which had me out of commission and off work, and which I’m still recovering from. I’m not feeling like the Wonder Woman of last fall – more like a woman wondering how we discover joy in all of this.

“…because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. " (James 1:2-4)

This carpet is a small thing, but a big inconvenience. We needed to persevere through that trial THREE TIMES, instead of ignoring it or complaining about it, because if we didn’t, we’d have bald spots on our carpet very soon. And in a few years, we’d wish we would have just done the job.

We needed to persevere until our trial was complete. I needed to let it finish its work. I needed to learn that in choosing perseverance, I’d find joy. Consider it all joy, when I faced trials of many kinds this year.

I still need to learn to count it all joy when facing trials of all kinds. Content that my Provider has not forgotten me, and wants me to be mature and complete, not lacking anything, and that in the midst of this joy-journey, He’ll probably make sure that I get some chocolate and naps as well.

Kay Warren says that joy and sorrow are parallel train tracks – we’re all on both of them at all times, they’re never mutually exclusive (my paraphrase.) And here’s the thing – we need to keep learning this joy-thing throughout our lives, don’t we?

We need wisdom.

As a gift of grace, James follows his words about perseverance with these:

“If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.”

Wisdom to choose the right things at the right time. Wisdom about how to consider it all joy. Wisdom about how to endure. Wisdom about what to care about and what to leave behind. Wisdom for decision making. Wisdom on who and what to let in and what to say no to. Wisdom on what to stop and what to start.
I need so much wisdom, friend. Generous wisdom. I need that, Lord. Help me trust you to know better than me, even when my carpet needs to be replaced three times. May it be how we find joy – real joy – in the journey.