Do you ever find the same theme over and over again seeming to permeate every single message you listen to within a few weeks span? Each and every morning, I sit before the Lord to hear what He has to say to me; then, as I get ready for work, I typically listen to a pastor’s sermon on an app on my phone; during the week, there is usually a study I attend, and to close out on Sundays, I go to church. I have been thinking a lot about a message I heard this last Sunday entitled “Choosing Happiness,” when our pastor said that joy is not an option, it is a command. Joy is a choice we choose each and every day. It is not just a spontaneous emotion, but joy is a habit of the heart; it is a spiritual condition; it is a deliberate and active decision to rejoice no matter what the circumstances, and it is the byproduct of a deep and meaningful relationship with the person of Jesus Christ. Imagine my surprise when I went to a meeting this past weekend for friends and families for other moms who had also lost a child. There had been a handout with a picture of a brain with all kinds of words that described feelings of grief, and our leader went around the room and asked us to pick a word that best described how we felt about the loss of our child. There were at least 25 moms whose pain and sorrow were so evident as they spoke the one word that best described their own devastating journey of heartache over the death of their children. However, there was one woman in the group, whose son had tragically passed away only a few years before my own son, and I was struck by the fact that her word was not even on the handout, because to most women there, the word was unimaginable. The word she spoke was “joyful.”
Psalm 30:5 says, “Weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.” Who is able to utter the word “joy” that best describes how they feel about such a tragic event in one’s life? The choice to be joyful is tethered to our relationship with our Lord, and our walk with the Lord determines what we do with our Bible and how long that night of weeping will last. When you abide and dwell in the Word, it has a tendency to linger on you and in you. When we spend time with our Creator, He calms the soul and massages the broken heart; it is only through Him that we can find our peace and our joy, and then in turn we are able to carry it with us wherever we go. The storms of life will come, and it is our choice to choose where we anchor to ride out the tempest, who we choose to spend time with, who will become our rock, where we go to draw our peace and in what we find our strength. For me and for many women that I have spoken to, who suffered the devastating loss of a child, the first year after my son’s death was a blur and one reason was because I was numb as a result of the medication I took to get me through the day and to help me sleep at night. Nightmares would haunt me in the still of early morning and oppression would cling to me in the light of the day. No one could blame me for taking a pill to ease my suffering and my sorrow and to help me find the much needed rest, but there came a day when I stood at the crossroad and I knew it was time to truly face the realness of what had occurred, without any inhibition whatsoever. That day came a few weeks before my son’s one-year anniversary of his death.
Psalm 118:24 says, “This is the day that The LORD has made; We will rejoice and be glad in it.” Each and every morning, I chose to wake up and spend time with the Lord, and guess what, He changed my outlook, He put a new song in my heart; He caused my soul to be uplifted; He allowed me to smile once again; He gave me a peace that passes all understanding and He has brought me true joy, joy unspeakable, joy everlasting, genuine and real joy that permeates from something deep within my being that had never been there before. I decided to make Jesus Christ and the Word of God my medication to heal my broken heart and each evening before I drifted off to a deep sleep, I am able to thank my Lord for the day He has made; I am able to be joyful and be glad even in the midst of my suffering. Although my weeping has lasted for three years, I now find joy in the morning when I wake up to meet with my beautiful Savior, the lover of my soul, the lifter of my head and indeed, the Living Water who has sprung up within me and in whom I have come to depend upon, the One who never leaves me thirsty or wanting for anything more, because He is enough.
