Joy in Brokenness

If you haven't picked up on the hints from some of my previous posts, the last few months have been hard for me. Healing hard, but hard nonetheless. It's not that I haven't been graced with a thousand joys, because I have. But there is brokenness between and all around and even in the joy. There are new friends, but also friends lost and friendships changed and loneliness in lost relationship. There is laughter, but also gut-deep sorrow over battles lost in a war I know has already been won, but who remembers the war won in the midst of lost battles anyway? There are beautiful memories, but also haunting ones laced throughout of gasped breaths and paling skin and sobs screamed...memories I often wish had died with the one who died. There is happiness, yes, but also grumpy days and plans thwarted and hours of cramming for cruel tests and questions about tomorrow and who can find joy in all of that mess?

I remember. I remember that easy joy is no sacrifice at all. Joy in the laughter, joy in child-like giggles and days gone well and gifts never-ending...that kind of joy cannot be contained. It is the joy in long nights with screaming babes and broken dreams and tests failed and fears crouching that is difficult to find and even more difficult to cling to. It is that kind of joy that promises healing, if I can withstand the breaking and cracking and honing that allows the joy to seep through to bring wholeness. Anything easy to find is not worth much at all. It is the hard to find that earns great worth, and I think, so it is with joy. Easy joy...well, easy joy is cheap. It's not hard to scrounge up when things are going well. But hard joy...joy that sings in brokenness...that kind of joy is of great worth.

I sit by open window streaming sunlight, and I ponder the familiar Jesus-story. He says to his friends, "Let's go to the other side of the lake." They climb in the boat eager, I'm sure, to move on to the next adventure. They hadn't prepared for the storm, though, the storm that shakes the boat and their souls and everything they thought they knew about their Messiah-friend. He's sleeping! Resting in the storm. Can it be? They wonder, does he know the storm is threatening to pull us under the angry waves? They shake Him, and He shakes them: "Why are you afraid?" [Uh, maybe because we're about to DROWN!] "Do you still have no faith?" [Silence. Souls shaken.]

I wonder, as sun streams in and feet move overhead and birds sing of spring coming...What did Jesus want them to do? If they had HAD great faith, what would they have done in response to the storm? Would Jesus still have calmed the storm? Or would it have raged on, them unmoved by fear because of great faith?

I hear Him whisper, ever gentle in response, I wanted them to rest.
Is it possible? Is it possible to lie the soul-head down in the middle of the storm and rest? Then I remember that He promised them...He said, "Let's go to the other side." He promised to get them there. He promises to bring me to the other side, to carry me through the storm. He just wants me to lay down my heavy soul-head and rest, to live in a deep trust in who He is and who He promises to be.

How do I rest in the brokenness, in the angry words and shattered promises and dead hopes? How do I rest when I must search for joy in the difficult mundane, like a gold-digger decades too late, digging deep into the empty dirt for treasures stolen? How? Again, the gentle whisper: "You remember."

And so I do. I remember His promise {"Let's go to the other side."} and I remember His grace-gifts {the easy and the harder-to-sprout} and I remember His presence. He's here. He's here, in the grumpy and the smiles and the gut-wrenching cries. He's here. Sometimes I just have to dig deeper, to find the treasure of greater worth in hard joy. The whole time, I hum this line from song once sung: "The valley of descent has made me whole."

And so it will be. The hard joy has--WILL--make me whole.