Living With Both Joy and Sorrow is Living Full

 

In this world we have sorrow.

In this world we experience joy.

I once really struggled with how to live with both. How can I smile when I am hurting, physically or emotionally or both?

How can I say I am well when I'm not?

I thought I had to choose until I couldn't.  Because choosing meant that one reality needed to be discarded in lieu of the one I chose. Choosing one negated the other and both were very much a reality.

That's when I discovered the peace of living with both at the same time. And I realized both can coexist together. Both can be held with an equal right to be present and living with both made my life full.

Full of today.

Full of the presence of Jesus. 

Full spectrum of life's emotions. 

I can sing and cry.

I can laugh and mourn.

Picture with me one of those surveys that have a line and on one end there's the number one and on the other is the number ten.  One end says needs improvement and the other says excellent. You are supposed to rate the product you purchased or the experience you had. 

It captures and gives place to rate the spectrum of one's experience. 

So it is with joy and sorrow, pain and healing, storms and sunshine... to live with one on one end and the other on the other end; you live with the full spectrum and a life that experiences a peace which passes understanding.  

To encompass both is really to encompass the full of life.

A visual that helped me tremendously is the posture of two hands... to hold out both of my hands.  In one is placed what is hard, what hurts, and what emotion I am feeling.  In the other is placed the Greater Truths of Jesus and my choice to believe Him and if I can't in the moment, I say I want to.  In this hand is placed the choice to trust and in faith, stay with Jesus.  Then either lift them both up as an offering of praise or fold them together in a prayer for strength, for eyes to see Him, and a heart to trust.

For Jesus was fully man and fully God.  He came as an infant, born of a woman, life, flesh and blood, with feelings.  And yet, He embodies full divinity.  It's a mystery and a paradox that is the way of Jesus still today.  His ways are beyond ours but to live with both/and is to live fully alive in Him.

To experience pain is to know and experience healing.

To know disappointment is to realize there is hope.

To experience loss opens the way for comfort.

To know darkness is to experience the gift of light.

To be dead spiritually is to realize and experience the gift of our Saviour, Jesus and His life.

So the wrestle continues not in a new way of believing Him, but in a way each time something happens to choose Him again.  To choose to stay with Him, now, today and to find Him again in this both/and.

The Voice of Light

 

The morning light filtering through the trees, illuminating.

I've always been fascinated with the highlights of light. 

Light exposes. Light reveals. Light pierces through. 

Light pushes back darkness. Darkness fades and disappears as morning dawns.

Jesus is the Light.

"I am the Light of the world; He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." John 8:12

Jesus came in night, all was dark, not only physically, but dark with Roman rule and 400 years of silence with no voice from the Lord through any prophet. 

Waiting. Silence. Pain and hard.

But there were those who held on to the promise of a Saviour, a Messiah. 

Simeon, Luke 2:25, this man was righteous and devout, looking for the consolation of Israel. 

Anna, Luke 2:38, And at that very moment she came up and began giving thanks to God, and continued to speak of Him to all those who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem. 

And there were those whose hearts were open, looking, waiting, anticipating, to receiving the promise. Simeon and Anna are two of more that received because they were open and looking. 

Mary, not only opened her heart to possibilities, but also opened her womb and then her arms to cradle, to house the very Promise itself. 

We have the written promises of God and we too can choose to hold on to the promises He gives.

What promise speaks into your story today? What promise of God's truth would anchor your drowning heart in Him?

Find it. Claim it. And speak it over your heart.

Light a candle in defiance of darkness. Jesus is the Light. He is the Victor and in Him we too, can be overcomers, victors!

Let's keep our eyes on Him, the Light!