What Does Joy Look Like When You Suffer?
Hello friend! What would we talk about if we sat together at my kitchen table sipping a cup of tea, discussing life’s problems, specifically yours?
After chatting awhile, maybe you would tell me that you can’t stretch your income to meet your family’s needs due to rising costs of food and gas. Or we might talk about your auto-immune disease, your loved one’s cancer, raising difficult teenagers, caring for your aging parents, as well as your own mental illness.
Though I wouldn’t quote a Bible verse to you if you had just lost a friend or family member, I want to share one with you now because I feel it’s part of the solution to finding joy when you are suffering:
Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. The word “perfect” here means mature.
So, what does it look like to consider it all joy?
It’s a decision to rejoice in spite of your circumstances—in spite of your suffering. Sorrow and joy can coexist. You can be completely discouraged and exhausted and still talk to God, and even be honest and cry out to God as King David in the Old Testament did sometimes, and then say to Him, I choose joy. It may involve being still and sitting with God in your grief while tears flow until serenity washes over your soul.
If you’re in a financial bind right now, or a relationship that you want doesn’t look hopeful on the horizon, or you’re grieving the loss of your mental stability and peace, it may seem impossible to tell God, your purposes in my suffering are higher and greater than my understanding, but I still believe that You work all things together for good for those who love You. That’s hard when you’re smack dab in the middle of a crisis. But maybe over the long haul, and step by step you can grow in your experience of joy though you don’t see an end to your suffering. And I can’t see who is reading this, so you may very well be living a joyful life.
It’s not looking at life through rose colored glasses either. Perhaps it’s finding joy in the little things of life. A scripture reading that brings hope to your heart. A small pleasure like a cup of coffee (with creamer please). Talking with Jesus one-on-one in a quiet place. Hugging your messy toddler and looking into her sparkling eyes after she had a meltdown twenty minutes ago that rattled your nerves. Singing a chorus inside your head. Meditating on scripture when you feel sick or heartbroken by a troubled relationship or the lack of one.
Some of these are circumstances, I know; and joy when you’re suffering doesn’t depend on your circumstances. But it’s possible to choose joy today because of the power of the Holy Spirit within you. Joy isn’t always an emotion. It runs deeper than our emotions.
Joni Eareckson Tada, who suffers from excruciating chronic pain due to a life of quadriplegia, recites scripture to herself in the mornings for at least an hour while lying in bed until she finds joy to face the rigors of the day. She’s a great example of a joyful person, and she attributes her joy to knowing Jesus. Your circumstances are different from Joni’s, but if you live with chronic illness or a chronic mental illness, perhaps you can relate. She’s definitely an inspiration to me.
Can you make this your prayer today? Empower me Lord to choose joy.
- Marilyn