[Originally written 4/15/12 but there’s a substantial update in this posting. In the last decade I’ve moved more comfortably into joy and what that looks like in me.]
To be deeply peaceful – no matter what the circumstances – is something I’ve learned in the last decade or so. When I first wrote this, I was coming out of the most painful season of my life. The Lord had worked on the level of fear in my life, I’d been through excruciating grief, I’d wrestled with whether I was lovable. There had been a lot – and recognizing that I can have deep and abiding and sustaining peace in the midst of those things was one of the gifts of that journey. There can be a solid peacefulness that co-exists with intense pain.
Peace came pretty naturally to me in those days – and is still a solid pillar in my life now. When something challenges it, I know the steps to regain it. It takes more than it used to to disturb the peacefulness I feel, and when it does get disturbed it’s not the same struggle to get back there. Jesus promised us that His peace is different from the world’s peace – and I’ve experienced that.
But I was once challenged to not settle just for peace, but to press on to joy. This was earlier in my journey and the advice giver acknowledged that after a long season of pain and anguish, he knew that arriving at a place of peace felt really good. But he encouraged me to press on until I reached joy. For the joy set before Him, Jesus endured the cross. (Heb. 12:2)
But what does joy look like in me? Ten years ago, here is what I felt: Despite huge amounts of breaking free from it, I’m still shy in most settings. I don’t have the bubbly personality where joy spills over infectiously. I’m quieter by nature. I don’t spontaneously blurt out the things that indicate joy. Shyness creates unique challenges in this area. The fear of embarrassment is still a struggle for me. It seems as if peacefulness suits my personality better than joy does.
But I had a nagging sense that the Lord had more for me.
It’s not that joy was not present. I did think I had pressed past peace and into joy. It’s that I didn’t know how to make it visible. I often think that if I could change one thing about myself, it most likely would be this. I’d like to be more expressive to those around me – especially in the things that indicate joy and delight. But there I was, still quiet and shy about it.
A few days before writing this ten years ago, something caused a blip in my peacefulness and my joy. It hurt and it was unfair and I spent one evening doing a little bit of grieving. I brought a handful of people alongside me. The peace began to flow back in.
And I realized this at that point – the reminder to press on to joy was coming more automatically those days. It had become an integral extension of peace. Whether or not I would ever be able to express it in a way that others could see, I did know that the joy of the Lord is my strength.
In the decade since then, I have learned to be more comfortable with a quiet joy. My shyness is still there, but not as controlling. I still have times when I wish I could be “the fun one”. But I also am very comfortable with who I am.
I still think I live more comfortably in “peace,” but “joy” is also a fruit of the Spirit and I want my life to be characterized by it as well. The Lord has stretched me in the last decade – and I am bit by bit relaxing into it in new ways.
Betty's Thoughts 