When Joy Cries

This week Benjamin was born, child number four of four. I am forced to think back to a time in our marriage when things where much different. We sought the Lord in tears and prayer for eight years to have a child. Now we celebrate the birth of our fourth child. You would think, in this moment joy would be simple, and pure, and a bold statement of God triumphing over infertility in big and miraculous ways. Yes and amen, and yet, no.

Life is messy.

No, it is not a simple moment, it is messy one because Benjamin was born into a milieu of loss and sorrow (in many ways like Benjamin in the Bible: Genesis 35:16-18). 3 Months before the birth of a son, we experienced the loss of a father. And what can we do but both experience Joy and Sorrow in the same moment.

This is not the first time. On the same day our first child was born they held the funeral for my sister-in-law. In the exact same moment that we took Hannah into our arms, Maria’s body was being prepared for burial. Gain and loss, laughter and mourning in one beautifully difficult moment.

In 2006, my father was dying of cardiac failure because a massive heart attack. Of course we prayed that God would send the means to save his life. This meant a heart transplant. A prayer for life was a prayer for death. In the moment he received a lifesaving surgery we soberly rejoiced. God gave us 12 more years with my dad.

Today I celebrate the arrival of our son while I mourn the loss of my father. I am in a confluence of emotions. I am strengthened that this confluence is not foreign to the Bible.

For your consideration:

James 1:2-4

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

Acts 5:41

Then they left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name.

1 Thessalonians 1:6

And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit,

Psalm 42:5

Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my salvation

(Hope is a powerful emotion to have in the midst of the suffering found in Psalm 42).

Psalm 46:4-6 

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High.

God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved; God will help her when morning dawns.

The nations rage, the kingdoms totter; he utters his voice, the earth melts.

(This passage was written in the context of massive geological and political devastation and in the middle of it all is a city who is able to celebrate.)

Psalm 56:8

You have kept count of my tossings;
put my tears in your bottle.
Are they not in your book?

(The tenderness of God is found in the midst of persecution and sorrow.)

John 20:11-18

Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?" Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away."

(Mary wept on the day of Jesus resurrection.)

Revelation 7:14

I said to him, "Sir, you know." And he said to me, "These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

(Do you ever find it interesting that in Christianity when we rejoice in salvation we rejoice in the sorrow of an innocent man dying on a cross and this is ok (Isaiah 53:10)).

John 20:27

Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.”

Revelation 5:6

And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain,

Revelation 19:13

He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the Name by which he is called is The Word of God.

(Even in the resurrection we see the enduring wounds of the cross on Jesus. Joy again found in suffering. Joy of salvation in the suffering of Jesus.)

The danger we face, as Christians, is that we would take the rich joys we have in Jesus and simplify them down to a one note melody like a child plunking out Twinkle Twinkle Little Star on a toy piano. (Maybe cute the first time but quickly becomes annoying.) Joy deaf to sorrow is elementary and childish.

Why do we counsel each other so? “you are suffering therefore you do not have faith.” “To have joy you must avoid pain” “To be happy you must forsake sorrow.” “You cannot have confident happiness if you doubt in pain.” These are all lies.

Talking to a friend, while she helped Jen through her labor, she said to us that it is not “but”. Instead it is “and”. To say, “I have joy “but” I cannot have sorrow” is one note. I have joy AND I have sorrow is reality, and beautiful. Like a dissonant cord, played against the melody in an orchestral piece, the music will not be easily forgotten.

With this said to be a healthy Christian, who believes in a crucified and risen Savior, we have to live in the reality of painful mixed up joy.

Pixar of course captures this well in the movie Inside Out. (I have seen the movie 1 million times with my kids, and I still tear up in the last 10 minutes (spoilers)). But there is a moment where Joy (who is a personification of Rylie’s emotion joy) has fallen into a pit where memories are forgotten. She recognizes that her friend Sadness was right, in that there can be sorrow in a happy “core memory”, and Joy begins to cry. In a moment of hopelessness Joy cries.

Emotions mix and blend together to create a rich beauty. Like the complex of colors that can swirl around on the inside of a marble.

With that said, for me, today, joy is filled with sorrow and I lose nothing for it. This is not an easy moment and yet it is a beautiful one. My family right now lives in the moment where joy cries and we are not worried.

Pray for us:
Please pray that in this moment that we can experience both joy and sorrow well. Pray that our souls can be enriched by this moment, all six of us.

I pray for you:
I right now pray for you, my beloved readers, that yours may be an experience of “and”, (Joy and sorrow, pain and happiness) with a rock solid confidence that your foundation is in Jesus.