.: sacred dance of grief and joy {entry 1}

What suffering, hardship and grief has taught me about contentment and joy. 

Nearly four years ago to the date, I was asked to share a part of my journey with my chronic illness at church during a series on joy. This was in the first year of my illness and the beginning of discovering a theme throughout the time I have been sick, realizing this was a season marked by something one of my favorite authors calls the "sacred dance of grief and joy."

I find it interesting that although I wrote these words four years ago, there are so many lessons and themes that were happening in my life then, near the beginning of a similar season of grief, that resonate with many of the things I am walking through now. 

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Written and shared with The Rock, Nov. 13, 2010:

"You know, to be completely honest with you guys... when Hoops and John asked if I could share tonight, a few weeks ago... I couldn't quite put my finger on all of why, but something just wasn't sitting with me well. I realized part of me felt uneasy because like Hoops said last week, this word, "joy," is difficult to definite and can be easily misunderstood.

But, I think most of my resistance came from the fact that for most of my life, through various experiences in the past, I felt that being a Christian meant I had to be happy all the time... and that if I wanted to be accepted, I had to wear a mask. 

In all of that I learned that it wasn't okay for me to not be okay... and I always had to have this "joy" I would always hear about, or be happy.

But, like me, many of you have probably also found that we can't live like that for very long... because life just isn't like that all the time. I mean, none of us here tonight are immune to the reality that sometimes, life is just hard.

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I find the "illusion of control" I used to operate within simply laughable.

If there is anything that the unpredictability and all that has come with this illness has done in my life, is bring me to a place where daily I am reminded how little I am in control. For that alone, I can truly say, AMEN.

Many times, I've been brought to this place where I have no choice, even though I fight it some days, but to make a choice to trust and rely upon my God. The God who is truly with us in this, who is present and active in these circumstances even when it doesn't always feel like it.

This journey has led me to consider and wrestle with the question, what does it mean for me to be fully alive in this season? What does it really look like for me to have joy, to find hope, peace each day? To live my life when it feels like so much has been taken away? To rejoice in the midst of suffering, to grieve when the time to grieve, laugh when the time to laugh?

God, what does it really, as Matt Rogers says in his book, When Answers Aren't Enough, for me to "experience you as a God who is GOOD... even when life ISN'T?"

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I remember a turning point when this became most real.

It was about mid-summer (2010), I had started the day, sitting on our porch, drinking my morning tea (pretty typical, if you've been over to our place and joined me on the porch, my new thing), and you know, I as watching people go by, to and fro, to work or whatever they had going on.

Then all of a sudden, a wave of emotion hit me. I felt like I was viewing life from the outside. Like there was this WORLD out there I was once a part of but now felt I couldn't enter...

I was sitting in this chair, already fatigued even though it was just two hours into my day, and I remember thinking, "I'm YOUNG, I'm 26 years old for crying out loud, isn't this what's supposed to be happening at the end of my life, like when I'm 90??"

And in that moment, I told God,  

"You know this just isn't fair. It's not fair, God. 

Lord I know that you love me, I known that I am seen and known by You and that you care for me deeply... but I cannot reconcile, for the life of me, these two images... 

My heartfelt view of You, of a God whom I have experienced intimately all these years as a Father who I KNOW loves me... with all that is going on in my head... trying to wrap my mind around how that same God would allow me to experience so much pain...

I need to know in my heart, how can I truly experience You as good in the midst of this, because right now, to be honest, it doesn't feel like I can. Lord, help me, to understand. 

Because there is obviously so much more to who you are that I do NOT understand...

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And I sat there in that place for a while. And I waited. I realized in those moments that for quite a while now I had been feeling abandoned.

You know, some days it is easy for me to accept all that has come with this new season, but other days, it is a hard pill to swallow.

On this particular day, everything within me was fighting it. I wanted it all to be over. I wanted parts of my old life back and I just wanted a day without pain. I realized I was grieving and that I missed being able to do many things I loved doing.

But man, is that hard to admit. I struggle sometimes to feel like it is immature or a sign of a lack of trust in God, if I admit that there are things I miss or that I have to grieve how different things are now.

But the reality is, God has not been pushing me away from that place, but inviting me to grieve.

Showing me it's okay for me to feel sad sometimes. Angry. Frustrated. Confused with God. To find that all He wants me to be is real, and find that I am received.

In those moments out there on the porch, before I could continue processing suddenly something stopped me dead in my tracks. I felt like I heard these words so loud and clear, it nearly made me jump, they seemed nearly audible, when I heard:

"To not confuse God with life."

I just sat there dumbfound. "Okaaaay," I'm thinking to myself, "What does THAT mean?"

And then I heard those words again, slower this time, "do not confuse God... with life..."

Slowly it all started coming back to me. I remembered reading those words a few weeks earlier in Philip Yancey's book, Disappointment with God, where he shares what a man he calls a "modern-day Job," found while going through a series of trials:

 I learned first not to confuse God with life," He said.

 "We tend to think that life should be fair because God is fair. But God is not life. And if I confuse God with the physical realities of life--by expecting constant good health, for example--then I set myself up for a crushing disappointment."

- Disappointment with God, Philip Yancey

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These words brought freedom. As I've been pondering them the last few months, it is as if these words slowly began to free my heart and release me to view this differently.

 I began learning that God's goodness reaches far deeper than pleasure or pain, but that it embraces them both.

And slowly, instead of anger, I began to take joy in this God who was with me and just as broken to see one of His children hurting. 

A God that I have found, as Matt Rogers says, "laughs when we laugh and cries when we weep." A God who I heard in those moments actually agreeing with me and saying, "You're right... no, it is not fair." It was in that moment that I remember asking, "Okay, so God, show me how to live my life with this."

Suddenly, all that mattered in that moment was hearing Him tell me, 

 "Do not be afraid, for I am with you. There is not a single step of this you will have to walk alone."

And so He began to show me ways along with the help of one of our doctors, ways to manage the pain and the symptoms so I could be out of the house even if just for a couple hours a day.

I started to be grateful for those times out on the porch where I could just sit and be still with God and know that that was enough. It still amazes me that in nearly nine months of being mostly at home, I've never been bored a single day in this, which if you had told me that nine months ago, I would've told you were CRAZY, because I would've told you that that was no possible, that surely I would've gone crazy by now, as I was normally out and about all the time and hardly ever home.

But you know, I think even that is totally God's grace. I've found I've been given this gift of time in this season. More time to love and be loved. More time and more ways to share life and share His love with others, and receive His love from others as well.

 I feel like the Lord has also opened my eyes to the reality that life is fragile and unpredictable, yet that each day we're given, and life itself, is truly a gift.

My husband, Ben, has been nothing but a gift to me as well in all of this, I am so grateful to have him in my life. It blows me away that there has never been a time where he has made me feel like a burden.

He has joyfully served me in this... as Christ does... and has reflected the heart of God to me so many times and constantly reminds me that how he (Ben) feels about me or that his love for me has not changed in all of this, nor has my identity or worth. God has used this trial to strengthen and deepen our bond as a team as well as our love for one another and for God.

We have both never been more broken or needed God more. We've been reminded that this race is a marathon, not a sprint. As we continue to ask God for just enough grace and just enough strength each day to endure and fight these battles one day at a time.

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But this fight for joy is a constant, raging battle. Our situations may not be the same, but as many of you know from the things you are also facing, this fight is not easy, or something I feel I will ever really "master" or figure out.

But maybe that isn't the goal anyway.

Maybe living within the reality of the tensions between doubt and faith, turmoil and peace, hope and despair, joy and sorrow, and finding that those things can sometimes, and often do, co-exist.

And maybe then, embracing God in the MIDST of those tensions is more of what is being asked of me.

Yet I have found this fight is worth it... one that has reminded me that it's okay to be weak. That I don't have to be the strong one anymore. That I am weak. It is He who is strong.

Even in that weakness, there is a joy, a freedom.

I've found in those moments of pouring out my heart to God like I shared from my porch, and even wrestling with Him again in the last couple days, that through it all, after working through all the emotions and then allowing Him to speak truth to my soul, God has allowed me to experience a peace that truly does guard our hearts and minds... a peace that turns into hope. And a hope that produces joy.

A joy emerging from the sheer delight of simply being His child. Where that alone, our identity and belonging in Him, is enough.

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I think this is what joy looks like. At least what it has come to look like for me right now. That before all my questions are ever answered, I can rest in knowing that God is going to take care of me... no matter what. 

That I can rest, knowing He is holding me close and He will never abandon me. That He alone is my rock and my salvation. That who He is and who I am has not changed. That I can rest, in the security and love of a God, of a Father, who has been so good to me in this... and met me in ways I cannot begin to explain.

Joy that was once lost, can be found. A sense of joy that is based upon God rather than something we can muster up on our own. A joy that is deeper than our feelings and not dependent upon our circumstances; one that is rooted in Him and His promises, and in His love that never fails.

As Dan Allender says in The Healing Path, "Joy is not an absence of struggle or sorrow, but the taste of the presence of God as he surprises us with his gracious love, whatever our circumstances."

- Testimony shared with The Rock, Nov. 13, 2010
:: Photo by Pam Nakamura