Reclaiming Joy

During our time of trying to have a child without success, I had some very sad days. When happiness escaped me, I began to adopt the notion of choosing joy.

For me, happiness is linked to external circumstances.  When positive things are happening in my life, I experience happiness.  I view joy quite differently.  I feel that joy comes from within.  It is not dependent on the circumstances in my life.  As a Christian, I believe the source of this joy is God.

When the darkness closes in, I can choose to dig deep within me to find joy.  Sometimes it's buried beneath my sadness, but when I choose to look...it's always there.  That joy can glow in the corner of my heart, helping me hold on to hope.

A little less than two years ago, I remember coming home from a dear friend's house in tears.  I watched her darling child play on the carpet while she and I discussed the hopelessness I was feeling about ever conceiving a baby.  She prayed with me and encouraged me and loved me.  But when I got in the car to drive home, the doubts pinched at my heart and the tears began to flow.

But what's the plan, God?  What's the plan?

I'm lonely for a child.  I long to be a mother like so many of my friends.  

Do you even care?  Are you even listening?

I came home to our quiet, empty house.  I stood aimlessly in the kitchen as my sadness began to form into anger.

Should I throw something?

Should I yell?

I am so disappointed, God.

And that's when I realized I had a choice to make.  I could give myself over to the bitterness. 

Or I could choose joy.

Through a blur of tears, I began writing on the blank chalkboard hanging on our kitchen wall.  I wrote three words...

"I am blessed"

I chose joy.  I chose to love my husband more than ever before.  I chose to love the children in my life until God blessed me with my own.  I chose to be grateful for our home and our jobs and our families.  I chose to hope.

The day we left that doctor's office with the devastating news of William's condition, I felt as if the glow of joy within my heart had finally gone out.  I felt as if I were in some sort of terrible game, and I was losing.

I tried, God. 

I can't do it anymore.

Losing this baby will break me beyond repair.

For several days, when I looked at the chalkboard my eyes would narrow in bitterness.

I am not blessed...I am destroyed

And then I began to feel the familiar longing to dig beneath the sadness for joy.
And do you know what?

I still couldn't find it.

A few days later I would dig again.  Through my pain and weeping, I kept digging.

And slowly...I began to find it again.

I decided to reclaim joy. 

It's a choice I have to make every single day.  Some days I'm successful and other days I'm not.  But I know that God has placed a joy in my heart that cannot be stolen, despite my circumstances.

Today was a particularly low day for me.  The joy was hard to find...but it's still there.

As I write this, William is wiggling inside of me.  So I choose joy.
Our friends and family continue to love us, pray for us, support us.  So I choose joy.
William has been a part of our family for 22 weeks and 2 days.  So I choose joy.
God has made me a mother.  So I choose joy.

As I sit in our family room, I can see the chalkboard hanging in our kitchen.  I've never erased it.  It reminds me that I made a choice that day.  It reminds me to recognize the blessings in my life.

Most importantly, it reminds me to choose joy.