Tonight my friend, Sara Frankl (www.gitzengirl.blogspot.com) lies at her home, very close to the moment when she will exit this world and enter the next--and finally get to see her Jesus and be out of the pain and limitations which have been her world for many years now. Sara, you have inspired me, challenged me, made me smile --and cry. You have shown me a better way than the one I often choose and that is how to "Choose Joy." Thank you and tell Jesus,I love Him and I'll be there soon!
There is a blog that has meant a lot to me in my journey through the past few months… (http://gitzengirl.blogspot.com)
Sara Frankl has a disease that is quite similar to my Psoriatic
Arthritis --only her disease is more advanced than mine is right
now…But, despite her suffering, she has a motto that is one that I’d
really discovered myself some years ago ( I think that Sara is a bit
better at living it out than I have been). That motto is “Choose Joy” and when asked by one of her blog readers to define joy, this is what Sara came up with:
Joy: the unwavering trust that God knows what He’s doing and has blessed me with the opportunity to be a part of it… not despite what’s happening in my life but
because of it. When everything earthly feels heavy He gives me an internal lightness that can’t be touched.
Recently,
I was talking to a young woman whom I’d met it the psych hospital
during my last stay. This lady was in the pits of despondancy and
feeling like her life is not worth living or that she has any ability to
continue to face life because of some pain that she has recently been
experiencing due to headaches. She questioned me on the degree of my
pain and then asked how I can get through my days and not feel suicidal
any more.
Oddly,
it was over twenty years ago when I felt most suicidal and determined
to die and that was BEFORE I’d experienced any of the physical pain with
which God has seen fit to entrust me since then. How is it that I was
able to get through those times and am now experiencing days of constant
pain and struggle and yet not sliding back into that morass of
depression? Well, to answer the first question: the way I got through
those days was not my own choice–I attempted several times to vacate my
existence on earth…but God saw fit to rescue me each time, preserving my
life because He knew that there was more that He desired to accomplish
in me and with me before I get to the end of my earthly journey.
I
told my friend on the phone today this, “In this world, there will
almost always be some sort of suffering and pain…this world is cursed by
sin and is under the jurisdiction of one who hates us and desires to
see us suffer. But God is bigger than he is and has more authority, and
God allows us to have pain for a while here, on earth…he is the real
authority in what happens to his children…and God takes what Evil meant
to be destructive and completely negative, and turns it into something
that hones and refines us; something that gives us the ability to
“comfort others with the comfort that we ourselves have received.”(as
Paul says in the the Bible).
God
teaches us sweet and valuable things through our pain…like how to curl
up on his lap and cry on his shoulder when everything else has failed to
comfort us…and how to see the small but scintillatingly beautiful
things that surround us here and now…and how to look forward to what he
has in store for us after this life is over to reward us and to make
right all that was wrong here in this world!! …. I would never, ever
have the longing or the appreciation for heaven that I now have, should I
have been successful at ending my life when I was in my twenties.
My
friend said repeatedly on the phone last night, “But I just can’t take
it! It’s not worth it! I can’t enjoy anything anymore!” I tried to
describe to her some of my other friend, Sara’s approach to life. Joy is
a choice. This world will always have suffering. We have the option of
facing the suffering with bravery and dependance on God’s strength and
with joy; or we can whine and moan and feel sorry for ourselves…and make
everyone else desire to not hang around us for very long! No one wants
to be around someone who is so caught up in their pain that they can’t
enjoy life! Self pity makes for a very lonely existence… Pain is bad
enough, suffering isolates us enough…but we NEED the presence and help
and comfort of others to encourage us…and if we chase everyone away by
clinging to our misery, it will make it all that much harder to get
through.
I
understand that depression is an illness and that a person cannot turn
it off by being told to “just choose joy.” I can’t do that either…but
let me explain to you the difference between joy and happiness, as I see
it. Joy is something that is a solid fact…it is something like the
foundation of your house. The condition of your house— the color of it,
or whether it’s clean or dirty etc. – does not affect the foundation.
The foundation always is there, always supports the house. And in the
event of a catastrophe, the foundation will hold fast and remain.
Emotions will come and go but joy remains and is the groundwork upon
which we build. I think that Joy is the result of a trio: “Faith, Hope,
and Love. When we have the faith to know God exists, and experience His
love, that gives us hope and the consequence is JOY!! But we need to
live out the truth of that sentence before we be able to know and
maintain will a life of joy.
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