Joy&Sorrow

I haven't been writing a lot recently. Those who follow me on here know that it comes and goes in waves for me.  When life is busy, thrumming with activity and schedules and work, I am less inclined to put words on paper.  Life has been that lately.  If 2020 was a pause on "busy" for most of the world, then 2021, in its latter half at least, has pushed everything back to the ways of old.  That word "busy," which had seemingly fallen out of my vocabulary last year, is back with a vengeance.  It hates that I sat idle for much of 2020, that I had time to breathe and think and dream about what life would be like after all that we collectively experienced that year.  But lately, the words have been filling me again and I've been pushing them away as much as I can. The more I push them away, the more they want to be written.  I have a pen holder that I bought in high school, when I was just starting to realize that writing was something I wanted to do for a long time, and it has a quote on it that says: "The writer must write what he has to say, not speak it." It's an Ernest Hemingway quote, and I feel it deep in my soul sometimes, days like today.

These days, I sit with the tension of joy and sorrow all of the time.  Both personally and professionally, I can experience joy and sorrow in the very same moment.  Sometimes I can recognize one hitting me just before the other comes roaring behind.  Other times, I'm torn over which emotion to feel-- I know that both are welcome here, that both could sit and fill the space I'm in.  When both show up, it feels hard to manage them, to know which to greet first.  I don't always quite know how to wrangle one while the other is there.  

A few weeks ago, I felt the tension of both, and could feel the sorrow trying to win in a moment when I knew joy was meant to be experienced.  We were at our nephew's birthday party, and there were children laughing and screaming, babies being carried around in little cloth wraps, people my age parenting and playing with their kids, amidst water gun fights and slip and slides.  All of the things that would bring immense joy.  But I sat on the edge feeling like an outsider peering in. Some days I wonder if our home will ever be filled with those things-- tiny babies or children's laughter, yard games in the backyard and all of our friends and family gathered around singing a birthday song over a beautifully iced cake.  Sometimes that still feels really far away for us.  I had sunglasses on and was grateful for how well they hide tears, because I knew I was in a moment where my tears were not likely to be welcomed or well-explained.  

The daily work that I do in palliative care also reminds me of this tension of joy and sorrow, as I often see the reality of patients whose bodies are weakened by cancer and its treatments trying to enjoy the life around them-- their families, their pets, their gardens, their friends.  I do my best to give my patients and their families space for all of it-- I let them talk about their hopes and wishes for what the chemotherapy will do.  And I let them grieve the life that they have seemingly lost, the one that they are hopeful to find again once all of these medical procedures and infusions are over with.  It's no wonder I feel worn out by the end of my days-- some days I take all of the heaviness home with me and sit with it at my kitchen table, trying to sort through it all to leave it behind before I jump into our home life.  

And there's another place for that tension, for joy and sorrow: our home.  Scott and I always hoped we would move back to North Carolina when we left for Indiana.  We thought maybe we'd be there for a few years and then head back down south. We ended up staying there for almost a decade.  I loved our home in Indiana; we had finally settled in a town that we really enjoyed, had found a church that offered so much room for growing and stretching in our faith, and we had the community I had always hoped for-- women gathering in the midst of our home renovations to enjoy tea and pumpkin muffins and talk about the Bible.  We left all of that behind, knowing it was hard but good.  We moved to Asheville and have felt the joy of being in a beautiful place, surrounded by mountains and beautiful sunsets and many of the outdoor activities and things we love.  But we've also felt the sorrow of uprooting our lives and being in a new place in the midst of a pandemic, where we long for friends and people to sit in our living room or on our porch to laugh and walk through life with.  We've walked through one of the most challenging seasons of our lives and marriage this year while also finding moments of joy in the midst of the challenges.  

I'm always surprised by the things that I experience until I view them through the lens of what Jesus went through on this Earth. It's like I suddenly realize that this isn't a "woe is me" type of tension I feel-- it's a real tension that Jesus experienced in His life on earth and that God told us we would experience if we chose to follow Him.  I think Jesus experienced the joy of being with us here on Earth while He walked it while also feeling the sorrow of what was to come-- separation from us and separation from God when He died on the cross.  He knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that this was coming-- it was the whole reason He came here to walk in our midst.  I think we feel a similar tension of joy and sorrow because this isn't really our ultimate home.  We walk this Earth that is tainted with sin, with darkness, with evil around every corner.  And we see glimpses of the life to come-- rays of light shining into darkness and hope for the eternal kingdom.  But sometimes the darkness feels like it's overshadowing the light-- sometimes it's hard to hold space for both.  I know a day will come where the darkness will fall away and we will see only light.  Until that time, I think that we have to know that this tension of joy and sorrow is here to stay. 

I've just learned this year what it means to lament.  I don't think anyone learns this without walking through a deep valley, and my experience has been no different.  There is an entire book in the Bible devoted to lamenting (Lamentations), but also many of the psalms are psalms of lament.  I find it interesting to read through the psalms because you certainly see this tension of joy and sorrow within its pages.  There are psalms of lament, psalms of thanksgiving, psalms of wisdom, psalms of praise.  On one page you read, "Hear my cry, O God, listen to my prayer; from the end of the earth I call to you when my heart is faint.  Lead me to the rock that is higher than I" (Psalm 61:1-2).  On the next page, you read, "Shout for joy to God, all the earth; sing the glory of his name; give to him glorious praise!" (Psalm 66:1-2).  

Earlier this year, I was sitting in a church service where the pastor led us through a prayer of lament.  I was sitting beside one of my good friends from Columbus after spending a weekend at a retreat with her, and I just started sobbing as we were led through the prayer.  I am sure people around me felt so awkward-- I think for many people, unless you are truly in a season of lamenting or have walked through one before, you cannot understand what it really means to do so.  I never did until this past year, and now that I do, I feel that I can see the world around me through a different lens.  God uses those seasons to teach and instruct us, to grow and stretch us, and bring immense joy on the other side of them, but He also uses them to help us reach others around us who are walking through sorrow.  

I guess what I am saying is this: I am learning to be okay with this tension of joy and sorrow in my own life, and I feel the ways it is being used for things far beyond me.  And so while it is hard to allow space for both to dwell here, I think I'm realizing that we simply must.

XO,

C