Of Joy

“…and provide for those who grieve in Zion – to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of despair.” ~ Isaiah 61:3

My middle name is Joy. As a child I remember asking my mom how she decided on my name and telling her in my smart-alecky ten-year-old tone of voice, “You must have known that I would be a happy child.”

It’s interesting to think about those words that I spoke to my mother, especially now that I am a mother too. She didn’t “know” that I would be happy.  None of us “knows” what lies in store for our lives or the lives of our children. I also realize that I misspoke when I used the words “joy” and “happy” so interchangeably.  They are not the same. Happiness is a feeling, vulnerable to situations and circumstances. Joy, on the other hand, is a state of the soul, a purposed gift from God.

On the day that I was rushed to the hospital in pre-term labor and learned that my baby would not survive, I was certainly not happy. When I held my daughter’s tiny body on my chest and realized that we would not be taking her home, none of the emotions that I felt was anything close to happiness. And yet amidst the chaos, confusion, and heartbreak of that day, Elena’s life brought me joy. As I was being wheeled back from the recovery room and heard her name being spoken I knew that her life and her purpose were real and had been gifted to me by our Creator. While everything around me that day looked and felt like ashes, what followed in the months and years ahead revealed the oil of joy. At times it had seemed impossible to find but it was there.

That is the power and the grace of my God. He allows for us in our humanity to wonder and fear, to feel the anger, to cry the tears, to wish things were different, and through it all He weaves the thread of joy into a garment of praise. Those are the times we come to know Him in a deeper way and we learn to surrender more fully.