When Joy Eludes Us

Joy is a funny thing. I'm coming to realize that there are certainly moments of random and even surprising happiness in life, happiness that comes into our lives without having much to do with it ourselves. But joy is a little different. Joy, a calm and contented and happy sense that life is good and we are good and God is most certainly very good, needs perhaps to be more intentionally sought after. Joy seems more and more to me to be a choice.

But even after this realization, I was still struggling. If joy was a choice, why couldn't I just choose it and feel it? Why couldn't I wake up and say, "Even when things go wrong today, I am going to remain positive about my circumstances and grateful for my life and, in short, joyful"? And after saying that to myself, why couldn't I follow through and make myself feel joyful even in the midst of misfortune. Because, friends: I couldn't. I come to you now and admit to you that after months and months of trying to consciously choose joy and coax, or more often force, myself to feel it, joy still eluded me almost every single day.

A friend today told me to pray over Psalm 34, and I am so glad I did. As I read, I realized that as I have perceived myself to be failing to feel joy, I have moved further and further away from God. I mistakenly believed that God would be somehow upset with me if I couldn't be grateful and happy and joyful for all the good things He has done for me. If I couldn't come to Him in praise and thanksgiving, did He really want me to come to Him at all? Did He really want to listen to me complaining about all the petty negative things, as well as the majorly negative things, going on in my life? Didn't He want me to overcome these negative things, find joy in the positive, and come to Him in praise of it?

Well, ideally, yes. But that is not all that God wants. I remembered today that He is also there for us in the broken times, the sad times, and the desperate times.

"In my misfortune I called,

the Lord heard and saved me from all distress."

In my prayer, I felt God reaching out to me and telling me, "Welcome back, little lost one. Welcome back, my daughter. You have tried so hard to please me with your joy, but don't you know that I am the source of all joy? Thank you for your effort. Let me take it from here."

Somehow, I had become very wrong-headed in my thinking. I had forgotten an entire aspect of prayer: the anguished petition. I was still praying quick prayers like, "Please keep me safe in this situation." And as I mentioned, I was still saying prayers of thanksgiving, but those were becoming fewer and farther between as I felt less and less able to feel any sort of happiness and felt more and more ashamed of my inability to force myself to feel happy. Today, I prayed a true prayer of anguish: "Why, God? I don't have anything to say other than 'Why am I so sad?'" (followed by far too much to put here haha). And sure enough, God reached out because:

"The Lord is close to the broken-hearted,

saves those whose spirit is crushed."

I realized that God has been next to me all throughout my time of suffering these past two years. He has walked beside me, but I forgot to reach out. I tried to do everything myself, and as it became clearer and clearer that I couldn't, I became more and more frustrated and ashamed and therefore less able to pray. What a terrible cycle.

This is the start of a new journey, and I am sure that this post has made very little sense. I am also sure that this current line of thinking will need to be tweaked as I move forward. But it's a start.

I have realized today that I can choose to try to view things in a positive way. I can try not to dwell on negative things. But try as I might, I cannot force myself to feel happiness or joy because I am not meant to be able to do it on my own. That is where God (and also a good counselor, for anyone with mental health issues who might be reading this) comes in. If I keep up an open dialogue with God, if I am honest about how I am feeling, if I am not ashamed of my suffering but instead use it to build a stronger relationship with God, He will move the spirit within me that is responsible for joy. It is a partnership between Him and me. And I am happy to say that He and I will work together toward, if not days of infinite happiness, days of a deep and contented joy.

Chin up, friends. Even if you don't feel like smiling now, have faith that you will soon.
(Also hello. Realized I hadn't put a current picture up in three years...)