happy happy joy joy

We spent some time in Philippians this Sunday talking about the difference between being happy and being joyful. The difference is something I meditated on heavily while Grace was in the NICU. I mentioned in an earlier post that I've decided most people can't handle emotions outside of "happy". And I think the root of this is our inability to understand the difference between "happiness" and "joy". While Grace was in the NICU I was most certainly NOT happy. I was joyful -- in my knowledge that God is in control of the situation, that our circumstance was not a surprise to Him, that despite the storm in which we found ourselves my God had not changed. But for all this joy I struggled to make my face reflect anything but the sadness for the present circumstance. See what I mean about the difference being difficult to understand? I'm having trouble just writing about it...forget knowing it. It seems to be too great a contradiction for our human-ness to grasp. Nonetheless it's a state shared by Biblical "giants" -- David, Job, Paul, just to name a few, struggled with their temporal feelings of unhappiness in contrast to the inexplicable joy they had through their knowledge of and relationship with God.

The birth of each of my kids has been a conduit through which God has taught me an invaluable lesson. I think my lesson with Grace is this striking revelation of the difference between the temporal emotion of happy and the nonsensical permanence of joy. There was a verse that reverberated in my head throughout our ordeal with Grace (beginning in September when we thought she might arrive) and it's stuck with me still. Rejoice in the Lord always; again, I will say, Rejoice. (Philippians 4:4) That's something I think I'll work on today.