Happy Joy

I read a blog post in the quiet of the morning, as the girls watch a little movie and I had intended to quickly wash the dishes and go join them. I still will go and join them, but perhaps the dishes won't be washed when I do. But I stopped to think, and sometimes thinking is best done when the mood strikes these days, and the dishes left until later. Because the thoughts pass through my busy mommy mind like water through a sieve and are gone if I don't pause to capture them in their flight.

I read about joy, and about living joyful in this crazy, awful, frightening world we find ourselves in today. The world that frightens me so much that I am afraid to read the news. The world that frightens me so much that I am afraid to read about Corrie ten Boom anymore because sometimes I think that it's all about to come to that again, only on our own soil this time. Perhaps I am wrong. But I hear tales and I see things and I worry.

I worry when I try to watch children's shows with my babies and they are so foolish and full of rebellion and anti-Christian sentiment that I have to turn them off quickly and wonder what happened to the simple little things I used to watch as a little girl. So we watch old shows. From simpler days that weren't really that long ago.

I worry when I see the Constitution being re-written or discarded before our eyes. I worry when I go through check-out lines and look at all of the young people – not much younger than I – who are at the registers or walking through the store, and I see the hopelessness and anger in their eyes...and I think that they will be running the country sooner than I'd like to think.

I worry when I see the scores of the anti-rich acting like they think they're actually poor and swarming the streets demanding their just deserts – namely fancy cars and huge homes and gated communities like the 1% get to have – while all around the world millions live in squalor that would make a trailer look like a palace.

I worry when it seems that the tales of abductions and rapes and murders and abuses just pour in faster and faster every year, and I look at my two little girls and feel terrified for their futures in this wild and crazy world, and hope that they will have a brother or two or three to look out for them when their Daddy and I can't be there anymore.

I worry about a future that looks like it could be very dark indeed. It could be farther off than it appears, and perhaps it will not come in my lifetime. But I see dark clouds ahead and they are coming straight for us. I know that if I don't have to sail into them, my children will. My children who sit now so sweet and innocent and thrill to the melodies of Mary Poppins and squeal with joy at the sight of a squirrel on the back deck...they do not see the clouds that I see. To them the world is a place of wonder and excitement.

And I so often forget this and see it as full of fearful things and frightening unknowns and dark terrors looming around each bend in the road ahead.

But I do not want this to be the life they see me lead. I do not want them to see me live full of fear and anxiety, even if everything around me seems to demand it.

I want them to see me leaning on the Everlasting Arms. I want them to see me fearlessly laughing at the future, like the woman of Proverbs 31. I want them to see me welcome it with open arms, knowing that whatever comes is whatever God allowed, and that no matter what happens, HE is with me, and HE is with my children. I want them to cling to Him, and if they have learnt to cling to Him with all their hearts and souls and minds, then I need not fear the future for them. Their bodies may suffer, but their souls will be safe.

And isn't that what really matters?

I crave comfort. I like leisure. I want my children to have freedom from fear and freedom from want and freedom from all the things that I fear await in the stormy seas that may be ahead.

But those things are not promised us in Scripture. What is promised us is the faithfulness of our God. That He will never leave us or forsake us. That His everlasting arms will always be there. That He is our strength, and He is our joy. That in Him, we are commanded to rejoice, turning our worries over to Him. We are to rest and trust in Him, and obey Him, and there we will find true joy.

Joy that goes above all the fear and tumult of the world around us. Joy in the midst of the maelstrom that swirls around us and joy as we watch our culture swirling around the drain and wondering if we will be dragged down into darkness, too.

Joy is above all of the fears of this age. Joy is bigger than suffering. Joy is not happiness. Joy is not a foolish denial of reality.

I think to myself...what is joy? I have always known that it was apart from happiness. That it was something other. Something serene and pure and entirely different from the happiness that Americans are sworn to pursue. The happiness that fills our lives with cheerful noise and racket and that drowns out the noise of fear around us by distracting us with baubles and parties and fun and laughter and pleasant things. It's lovely, but it could all be snatched away, and then what would be left if we didn't have joy?

And then the thought comes to me, quiet and slow.

Perhaps joy is the Great Quiet that swallows up the noise of the self-destructing world around us so that we can hear the still, small voice of God. The still, small voice that whispers, “It is I.”

“It is I. Be not afraid.”

“I have overcome the world.”

His quiet voice drowns the roar of the world that seeks to deafen us.

His quiet voice silences the gale.

And in joy, as we listen to the quiet all around, we will be happy.

Happy. Come what may.