JOY JOY JOY JOY, DOWN IN MY HEART!
My first summer in Ukraine at English camp in Rivne - 2005
After my first summer doing English camps in Ukraine, I had a colleague tell me that a gift I brought to the team was JOY. I was so blessed by that comment. I never saw myself as a joyful person much less having joy as a gifting. I struggled with worry and fear most of my childhood. I was told I was funny or a fun person to be around, but not joyful. I was so surprised! Yes, it’s cool to be “funny and fun-to-be-around,” but JOY that’s the good stuff.
My last team debrief in Krakow, Poland - August 2010
That’s when “joy” became such an important word for my life. I feel as though it had been spoken over me, and I see it now as my calling, my gift, my charge to go forth with...unto the ends of the Earth and all that good stuff. Joy is defined as “a feeling of great pleasure and happiness,” but, to me, it is also something tangible. I feel it deep down in me pushing me out of bed in the morning. It’s what shakes my shoulders and sways my body back and forth to the beat while I’m staring at my office computer, working on my third report. Joy fuels the high kicks even though I may not feel like kicking. That’s how I know joy is more than a feeling; it’s a choice. Joy comes from deep inside; it comes from God. He is tangible and real and JOY.
However, somewhere in Ukraine, my gift of joy was buried. When trials became too dark and heavy, when I couldn’t see any light around me; I got lost in despair. I came back from Ukraine a broken mess. My experience hadn’t been the pretty Jesus package I let everyone see in my monthly newsletters. I created different versions of myself for different situations; this is how I masked my pain for so long...I convinced myself and others I was fine. I had become a shell of a person, who perfected the art of faking it, for preservation sake. I was surviving. I had lost sight of myself and God, and that gift of joy.
Coming “home,” I was completely lost. I could barely get out of bed much less be a contributing member of society. My sense of self, purpose, and calling was gone. I was no longer the missionary, doing the big scary thing for God in a country that was not my own. I didn’t know who I was or understand why I felt nothing, void of any emotion. I was numb. I fell into a deep depression with fear I would never be the same. My hope for relief and a better tomorrow, my belief that it was all for God’s glory was gone. I felt to the core of me that I would never again be the girl who brought that beloved gift of joy to anyone or anything....or so I thought.
It took a few years for me to see and feel it again, but the JOY was always there, trying to shine through the cracks. God was pursuing me; He wanted to heal me and unearth my joy, bringing it back to the surface. The hurt of trauma and unmet expectations were slowly scraped away to reveal what had always been there fighting to shine bright once again.
Joy is a fruit of the Spirit, an exhortation. We are called to rejoice, which literally means to express joy. I rejoice, expressing this real, tangible JOY every day not only because I don’t have a choice--it is bursting out of me--but also because I have felt life without it. I have lived through a time when I couldn’t feel joy and express it. I don’t know where you’re at right now. Maybe you’re high on the mountain top, relishing in provision, or maybe you’re in the pit, cursing the darkness. Either way, know that God is there. Joy is still there...maybe deep down, but still there fighting for you, trying to get back to where you remember and feel it once again. Hope in that, and REJOICE.