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Oct 3-9, 2021
by Bethany Fitelson, MAT
Day 1: Joy versus Happiness
Day 1: Joy versus Happiness
At Danny’s and my engagement party over 15 years ago, one of the leaders of my home church came up to me and after congratulating us, asked, “Do you understand the difference between happiness and joy?”
It was an unusual thing to say at an engagement party among all the talk about the wedding, the ring, and future plans. But he gave me a meaningful look, and I knew exactly why he was asking me this. This was a man who, when he made his wedding vows 40-something years ago, had no idea how hard he would have to work at keeping his vows: “For better or for worse, in sickness and in health.”
His beautiful, charming, fun wife had been diagnosed with a degenerative neurological disease that not only crippled her body but her mind. She had become paranoid, cruel, angry – all the things she had never been before this disease. As her disease wore on, he had to adjust constantly to her needs and her rejection. Moments of happiness between them became fewer, but the joy was always there.
This man’s daughter was one of my youth group leaders when I was in high school and has remained a close friend and mentor throughout the years. She would say that when her mom’s illness was so ugly, so sad, the disease so evil, she could not pray. The only words she could pray were the lyrics to the praise song, “The joy of the Lord is my strength,” taken from Nehemiah 8:10.
How can “the joy of the Lord” be so sustaining as to get my friends through such difficult years? When happiness is elusive, what is it about joy that can become a life preserver for someone drowning in grief?
It was intimidating as a starry-eyed fiancée to think about what my upcoming wedding vows could eventually mean. How could I be ready to commit to something that could potentially mean years of caring for someone with a debilitating illness that makes them not even remember that they once loved me?
I decided that the answer was: you can’t. I don’t think anyone enters marriage knowing what is to come. If we did, there might be a lot fewer married people, haha.
I hoped that God would give me the strength to face challenges as they arise without knowing what was to come. I understood then what my friend’s father was asking me: Did I know that happiness comes and goes in marriage, but joy lasts for the long haul?
Reflection
What have you learned about the difference between joy and happiness so far?
Day 2: Joy amidst Depression
Day 2: Joy amidst Depression
A few years ago, I had a mystery condition that caused severe vertigo. Some days I couldn’t walk across the university campus where I work without feeling like I would faint. I couldn’t drive because dizzy spells hit me while behind the wheel, and it was terrifying, not to mention potentially dangerous. Not being able to drive, something I usually love, was difficult on me and Danny. I am stubbornly independent -- one of those people who got my driver’s license on the day I turned 16 because I needed the freedom -- and having to rely on other people to drive me to work, church, doctor’s appointments, etc. was, frankly, embarrassing.
When I think about what it means to experience joy in suffering, I think back to that time. Was there joy to be found in that stressful, frustrating season? I think of the people who cared for me and my family during that time. The church member who drove me to doctor’s appointments when Danny wasn’t free, the youth group families who drove me home from youth group when it was I who should have been driving their kid home. I think of how it felt to be prayed for by friends and church members and even my own kids.
My mystery condition was never fully discovered, but it was resolved. The solution? Anti-depressants. My mind and body had entered a spiral of vertigo begets anxiety, anxiety begets vertigo, and it is likely that my dizzy spells – particularly while driving – were panic attacks. Whew. That was hard to admit: to myself, to my therapist, to my family, and now publicly.
Reflection
Where is joy to be found when we are in the midst of depression?
How do we have joy when we are so anxious we can’t function, or sleep, or do the things that used to make us happy?
Day 3: Working for Joy
Day 3: Working for Joy
Yesterday I asked “where can joy be found in the midst of depression?” Even being on the other side of depression now, this is hard for me to answer. Again, joy is not the same as happiness. So when we are sad, grieving, depressed, anxious, etc. we can still have joy, but it may look different than we expect.
For me, joy during depression came through therapy. Therapy did NOT make me happy; it was hard work that often left me brooding the rest of the day. But it did contribute to joy as it helped me grow into a healthier version of myself. Joy came through medication. Thank you, God, for science and doctors! Joy came through the hard work of admitting I needed help. That did not make this Type-A-Enneagram-One happy, but it gave me joy to see how I was loved when I needed support. And it gave others joy to provide help.
Reflection
When was there a time you found joy in helping someone who needed support?
When have others helped you?
Day 4: Joy from Jesus
Day 4: Joy from Jesus
Author and pastor Jen Hatmaker spoke at the Evolving Faith conference last October, just four months after the sudden and shocking divorce that ended her 26-year marriage. She was raw and vulnerable, and shared the story of Jesus appearing to the women at the tomb after he had risen. As the Gospel of John tells it, the women call him the gardener because they don’t recognize him. Maybe they assumed he was the gardener because Jesus was the last person they expected to see alive and well that day.
Hatmaker shared the times that Jesus showed up for her in the time of her grief: the meals delivered, the family members who dropped everything to come over at 6am, the friends who held her, the co-workers who extended deadlines. At the time they seemed like “just the gardener” but she could see instead that it was Jesus all along. John 20:14 says “When [Mary Magdalene] had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus.” (NRSV)
In the same way, the disciples walking the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus were in a long conversation with Jesus after his resurrection - again without recognizing him. Like with Mary Magdalene, Jesus reveals himself eventually. I love the way Luke describes their reaction: “They said to each other, ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?’” (Luke 24:32, NRSV)
Reflection
Where might there be joy found in the midst of suffering that could be the work of Jesus, but we did not realize it was Jesus?
When have you “felt your heart burning” with something that you later realized was from God?
Day 5: To Choose Life
Day 5: To Choose Life
Sarah Bessey, an author and preacher, wrote Miracles and Other Reasonable Things about being in a traumatic car accident and the aftermath. Her healing process was two steps forward, one step back as she adjusted to a new normal with a body that would never be the same.
She reflects on the covenant God makes with Israel in Deuteronomy 30:19-20:
“…I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying him, holding fast to him…” (NRSV)
Bessey writes:
No matter what path I walked upon, healed or unhealed, miraculous or ordinary, the words that rose in my soul that morning – choose life – whispered that I may not have chosen this particular path, but I could, while walking it, choose to move toward life. I could choose to open myself to the possibilities of joy in it. I could choose to love and become reacquainted with my new body. I could be born again, all over again. (Bessey, Sarah. Miracles and Other Reasonable Things. (New York: Howard Books, 2019), 163.)
Reflection
When is it hard for you to “choose life?”
What is one way you can choose life, choose blessings over curses, this week?
Day 6: Laughing without Fear
Day 6: Laughing without Fear
Proverbs 31 ends the book of Proverbs with a poem about “a woman of noble character.” My favorite line from this poem is translated in the New Living Translation as:
“She is clothed with strength and dignity,
and she laughs without fear of the future.”
Proverbs 31:25 (NLT)
What a thought. What would it look like if I were so confident in God that I could think of the future without fear or anxiety but with joy?
I don’t believe the Proverbs 31 woman is laughing without fear of the future because she claims to know what the future holds. I do not think she is so arrogant as to believe only good things will happen to her. To be able to laugh amid the unknown is a joy that runs deeper than happiness.
Reflection
How can we laugh without fear of the future?
What is something in your future that you need to claim with joy?
How can we release fear about the unknown?
Day 7: The Good in the Suffering
Day 7: The Good in the Suffering
In FCC’s high school confirmation class, Danny and I teach a lesson on Five Reasons the Bible Gives for Suffering, which range from consequences of our own sin (but not always), consequences of other people’s sin (but not always), testing our faith, or, my favorite, Ecclesiastes basically gives a shrug and says “Who knows? Just enjoy your life while you have it!”
The Bible has a lot to say about the good that can follow trials.
James 1:2-4
“My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance; and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing.” (NRSV)
1 Peter 1:6-7
“So be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you must endure many trials for a little while. These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold - though your faith is far more precious than mere gold.” (NLT)
Romans 5:3-5
“... but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” (NRSV)
In fact, the Bible says so much about rejoicing in suffering that we sometimes skip the grieving part of suffering. The Bible was written by brown, oppressed people. (For more on this, see The Very Good Gospel by Lisa Sharon Harper. (New York: Waterbrook, 2016).) The New Testament was written by people under occupation and persecuted for their faith. They suffered a lot. And they found hope in suffering, knowing that what happens here on Earth was not the end of their story.
But keep in mind this was suffering because of their faith, and these letters were written to entire churches and communities. Not all suffering is because of our faith, and not all suffering is communal. I don’t know if Paul would write to a mother who lost a child “boast in your suffering,” or if Peter would tell a family struggling to put food on the table, “your faith is being tested.”
There is a difference between a theology of suffering that lists the intellectual reasons the Bible gives for suffering, and the pastoral response to someone who is in a crisis. I tell our confirmation class that the Five Reasons the Bible Gives for Suffering is not a list to pull out when someone is in the middle of suffering. Please don’t tell your friend, “I’m sorry your Grandma died. Which of these Five Reasons for Suffering applies to you here?” That is not comforting or helpful to the person in crisis.
It’s not a lack of faith to grieve, to cry, to mourn a death, to feel lonely. It is not a lack of faith to go to therapy, take medication, or admit that your anxiety is getting the best of you.
Sometimes joy in suffering is found when a friend sits and cries with you, rather than trying to explain it away. Sometimes the most Christlike thing to do is weep for the loss of our loved one (John 11:35) rather than brush aside the pain and skip ahead to the joy.
Reflection
When is it appropriate to look for the good in suffering?
When is it wisest to sit with the pain and not rush the grief?
Looking back to Day 1, how can “the joy of the Lord be my strength” when going through trials?
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