Joy

Hello.

I have been trying to write this blog post for several months now. I feel that all I have to say on the topic of joy is far too much for one blog post, yet here I am attempting for like the 10th time. So...bear with me. :)

A few months ago I wanted to write about joy because I could see myself walking in it again. Sometimes we go through seasons of life where we feel so far removed from our “normal” that we don’t even really remember what normal is. Since normal seems so far away, the concept of joy seems even more distant.

That is how I have felt for much of the past year. Desperately searching for normal. Really trying to hope. Wanting so badly to be “fine,” and convincing myself that I was, only to eventually arrive at a state of honesty with myself that allowed me to see that I actually didn’t feel fine at all...which led to what felt like more despair than I began with. But several months ago, I could sense something different becoming my “normal.” I had hope that I was entering into what could be compared to the beginning of springtime after a long winter. I wanted to write about joy. I wanted to talk about the differences between true joy and fleeting happiness. I wanted to share my victories.

Well, somewhere in the middle of my first draft, I just couldn’t keep going. I lost all inspiration. I couldn't seem to make myself remember all those great joyful things I was going to say. Did I even believe what I was writing about? As time kept passing, no matter what I did I increasingly continued to feel like my entire foundation was being shaken. Like an earthquake during a hailstorm during a tornado...against everything that I had ever held as truth. I couldn’t even understand why, but I was questioning everything. With the loss of a steady foundation I was bombarded by confusion which left me feeling hopeless, restless, and depressed.

“Maybe everything that I have grown up ‘knowing’ isn’t real. Maybe all the encounters I’ve had with God were something I made up in my own mind. Who really is God, and if I have to ask that then why on earth would I trust Him? What am I doing with my life? The 20s are supposed to be the best decade. Why am I not thriving when it seems like everyone else is? If God really sees me and hears my questions then why isn’t He doing anything?”

As the questions and doubts grew I realized that faith was the thing that in the past had kept me holding on...it was the anchor enabling me to hope, and to cope with the situations that I have experienced over the past year and half. So naturally when that faith began to falter my hope did too. I became more anxious than I have been in a really long time. I was panicky about the future yet felt I had to make decisions about my future immediately. I told myself that I had to figure my entire life out. (That always works well.) I was having nightmares, trouble sleeping, and I was afraid. On top of all of that, the question that began defeating me was, “How can I go to a God that I’m not even sure I believe in?”.

And oh yeah! I was writing a blog post about joy! AWESOME.

But at some point in all of that earthquake/hailstorm/tornado, I realized that even if I had to do it every single day, I had to choose. I would choose Jesus. I would choose faith. Even if it made absolutely no sense to me. Why??? Because in that time when I was letting my doubt and fear run wild I found that being apart from Him very literally feels like chaos. Being in that dark place allowed me to see how incredibly desperate I am on my own. I realized that apart from all I felt, apart from all I saw, apart from everything that made no sense to me, nothing could change the fact that Jesus was my only consistent source of hope. Nothing could give me the peace I so desperately wanted except for faith that God really is who He says He is. The only hope humanity really has is that there is Someone who loves us enough to save us. I knew I wanted to believe, so I chose what I knew I wanted.

Sometimes we must choose based on what our spirits cannot deny instead of what our minds are struggling to accept.  

Faith really, truly...like joy...is a choice.

So in order to get to what I really want to say with all of this, I want to challenge our thinking and perspective. What if God is answering our prayers? What if the most desperate place of hurt allows us to experience deeper intimacy with Him? What if the feeling that He has entirely separated Himself from us could ultimately be a manifestation of His faithfulness to us? What if while I blame Him and complain He is working on something far more beautiful than I can imagine?

Through all of my questioning, searching, doubt, frustration, and hurt I finally came to this realization:

It is through deeper pain that a deeper joy becomes possible.

I don’t believe that sentence because I have arrived at destination Happiness and I feel amazing all the time and WOOHOO God gave me everything I wanted. That is not what true joy looks like. I believe it because through the hardest seasons of my life I have continued to see the redemptive character of God so tangibly. Sometimes it is through our season of brokenness that God is able to make us more whole. Real joy often comes from a place of real hurt.

In so many ways I am not yet where I want to be...life is such a long journey. But I am at a place where I can say to you confidently that I am thankful that God has allowed pain in my life. I am so thankful that He has not given me all I have asked Him for. If “no” means knowing Him more...if heartache means more dependency on Him and less on myself...if the trial means increased faith...then I know that He is being true to His good and faithful nature, and I want that more than I want what I “want.” My life was intended to bring Him glory, and everything else fades in the light of that truth and the knowledge of His goodness. I truly have come to believe and to see in my own life that He uses our pain to work in us a depth of joy that is not possible any other way.

Let me pause for a moment to say that whatever you are going through is valid and I am in no way saying it is not. One of my goals through all that I am sharing is actually to point out how very valid and tangible our struggles are. Depression is a real thing. Anxiety is real. The ways that people treat you are not always fair or just or right. The difficult or even horrific things that you have experienced in your life should never be minimized, and I deeply and sincerely hope that you have never believed or been told that God desires that you be in pain. His desire for us is life and life to the fullest.

Therefore, let me encourage you to have the boldness to acknowledge what it is you are dealing with and take that honestly before the Lord. As humans, we often have such a lack of honesty in communication with each other, convinced that wearing our fake smile is the better and safer option. But I truly believe that God is big enough for our brutal honesty. If He really is good, as He says He is, then He will do for you as He has done for me and be with you in the darkness, revealing His love to you even as you doubt. Have the courage to make the choice to trust when it seems as though every fiber in your being is telling you that God cannot possibly be trustworthy. Why would you do that? Because when you take that tiny little sliver of faith that you are clinging onto and decide to choose beyond what you feel, God is able to do immeasurably more with that than you could ever ask or imagine. When I finally decided to choose no matter all the pain I felt and all the questions that I had no answers for, God met me there and started rebuilding all that had been lost. I have seen it...I know it...I believe it.  

So, friends, if you have been aching for joy, aching for truth, or aching for even just a little bit of normal, trust me when I say that when we invite our loving Father into that broken place it is exactly His nature to bring healing to it. Even if that healing looks absolutely nothing like we thought it would at first, or takes a million times longer than what we thought it would take. He cannot deny His faithfulness; He cannot deny that He is good and that He loves you. So dare to believe with me that when all you see is darkness and all you feel is pain, God is still being faithful to you and He desires to lead you into a deeper joy and intimacy in His presence than you have ever known before.

Love,

Kimber

“31 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us,who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:

“For your sake we face death all day long;

   we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.