Joy: It's Not About Me

I like the word joy.  It's not my favorite (my favorite is hope in case anyone was wondering), but I'd have to say it's pretty high up on the list.  Just like hope, I like it because of what it means.  If you look it up, you'll see that joy is "the emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune or by the prospect of possessing what one desires."  That's a nice definition, but I'm not sure it's right since that's basically saying it's how you would feel if you got everything you wanted.  Maybe it's right in a world sense, but I don't think it's really Biblical.  According to a song I learned at VBS when I was a kid (and also according to Galatians 5:22), joy is a fruit of the Spirit, which means it's not something I naturally have.  It's not something my sinful flesh can really muster up, even if I had "well-being, success, or good fortune," because it doesn't come from me.  If you grew up in church, you probably heard some form of the "happiness is dependent on your circumstances; joy isn't" thing.  That's a nice thing, but not super helpful because then you're just left wondering what it is dependent on.  Obviously, you're supposed to assume it comes from God, which it does, but I always found that definition lacking specificity, which as an English major I tend to enjoy.
  
In light of all that, I've always felt like the concept of joy was something I was always not quite getting.  And recently (say the past year or so), I've felt like joy was something I didn't really have.  If I'm being honest, I tend to go to the negative more than I'd care to admit, and it's very easy for me to let that determine my mood.  Sure there's been plenty of times I would say I was happy, and I'm pretty good at pretending to be happy even if I don't feel like it, but if someone asked me if I thought I was experiencing joy, I would probably have had to answer not really.  And that, I think, is kind of a problem.  As a Christian, shouldn't I be able to say I'm experiencing joy all the time?  So I decided to do what all nerdy people do when something seems to be eluding them.  I decided to study it.  And since that's what I'm working on, that's what I'll be blogging about for the foreseeable future. (Disclaimer: I know that studying about joy isn't going to give me joy.  I know that it comes from the Lord.  So I don't think that if I just read a bunch on the topic I'm going to be able to make myself joyful.  But, since I'm going to be reading about it in the Bible and praying about it a lot, I'm pretty confident that God will help me on the whole experiencing-joy front.)  

I started my study in Deuteronomy.  Specifically Deuteronomy 16:15, which says, "For seven days you shall keep the feast to the Lord your God at the place that the Lord will choose, because theLord your God will bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hands, so that you will be altogether joyful."  Deuteronomy 16 talks about the three big feasts/festivals--Passover, the Feast of Weeks, and the Feast of Booths.  Verse 15 is talking about the Feast of Booths, which celebrates the harvest and remembers the time the Israelites spent wandering in the desert.  Verse 15 basically says that during this time of celebration and remembrance, the people should be joyful (verse 14 actually commands them to rejoice).  But why?  (And actually, during this time some Jewish families still build "booths" to eat and sometimes sleep in, which is kind of like camping, and anyone who knows me well knows that that isn't on the top of the list of things that would bring me tons of joy....although I'm all for a good fort, which according to this website building your family booth is kind of like.)

During this feast, the joy comes from two things--remembering what God did while the Israelites were in the desert and celebrating what He just did with the harvest.  In short, it's about what God has done.  

So that's the first thing I'm learning about joy.  It's not about me at all really; it's about God.  Thankfully, I haven't been in the desert and am not a farmer, (I did get 8 plants when I moved to my new apartment, and 5 of them are still alive!) but God has provided for me in a ton of other ways, most of which I don't really think about that often.  But maybe if I did think about them more, I would be more joyful.

I have a wonderful family, a great church where I've met some amazing women I'm so thankful to know, a job that I love most of the time and coworkers who I love all of the time, my great new apartment, plus lots of other things.  But the biggest thing God has done is save me.  The biggest thing is Jesus and everything His sacrifice means.  It means I'm forgiven.  Even though I don't remember that all the time.  And even though I still sin a lot.  It means I'm His child.  Even if I take for granted or all out forget how much that means He loves me.  And it means I get forever with Him.  Even though most of the time I don't think that's a big deal, when in fact it's really the biggest deal ever.  

But really what it means is that my "well-being, success, and good fortune" are 100% secure.    And it means the "prospect of possessing what [I] desire," mainly getting to be somewhere where there's no more pain and sin, where I'm face-to-face with Jesus, is 100% likely.  So I guess when you look at it that way, there's no reason for me to not have joy.  And when you look at it that way, the dictionary definition is 100% correct.

   

Sick...But Getting Better

As I write this, I'm sitting in the waiting room of the hospital while my sister is in surgery. She's been sick for months. At first she thought there was nothing really wrong. Then she thought if she did things like change her diet she could make herself better. And finally she realized there really was something wrong and went to the doctor. A few months after that brings us to today where she's in the operating room so the thing that's been causing problems for months can get fixed.

The thing is, in about an hour if everything goes as expected, she'll be out of surgery and the thing that's been causing her so many problems will be gone. But even when she gets out of surgery, she won't be better instantly. She'll have to stay in the hospital for a few days. Then she'll have to stay home for a few weeks. And then she'll be well enough to go back to work and start living a normal life again.

Last week I had a conversation with a friend about habitual sin and how even though I've been a Christian for a while I still sin all the time. And how it's frustrating. And how much I wish I could just get to Heaven and be perfect already.

Being a Christian is kind of like being my sister right now, really. There's this point when we realize that we're sinners. And sometimes we try to handle that on our own--like if we can just work hard we can make ourselves good enough. Then we realize that won't work. We need help from a professional. Someone whose purpose is to fix us. So we go to see Him and He does. There's this moment when we go from being not ok to being ok. Not because of anything we do. Because of Him.

Right now my sister is lying on an operating table asleep. She literally can't do anything to fix herself. But some time in the next hour or so her surgeon is going to do some surgeon thing. And when he does that, she's going to be fixed. Because of him. Not because of her.

But even though she's fixed, she won't feel better right away. Even though there's this moment when Jesus takes my dirty, sinful heart and gives me a new clean one, I'm not better right away. I'm cured. But I still need recovery. There are setbacks. And times when I try to speed up the recovery process by taking control for myself, which usually make things worse.

And those are the times when it becomes really, really important to remember that I really have been made completely better.

I'm sure over the next few days, the next few weeks even, my sister will have times when she's in pain, when she doesn't feel all that great. And it's during those times that it will be important for her to remember she's better. And the pain that she's feeling isn't a sign that she's sick anymore. It's a sign that she's better.

So as I continue along this road to turning real it's important to remember that the hard and painful times are just that. They're a sign that I'm fixed. A sign that Jesus is helping me get better.

And in a few weeks, if everything goes as expected, my sister will go back to work. And she'll get back to life. And she won't be sick like this anymore. The only remnants of all this sickness will be a few scars.

And one day, I'll go home to my Father. And I'll get a life forever with him. And I won't be sick at all anymore. The only remnants of all my sickness will be a few scars. But they won't be mine.

Avoid Them Like the Plague

If you ever paid attention in your English classes and had a teacher who thought he or she would try and be a little clever, you'll recognize from that title that I'm talking about cliches. Those overused expressions we all love to say that have been hanging around so long they've lost their meaning and any real hope of being effective. Cliches, unfortunately, don't just take up residence in the papers of students doomed to get bad grades. If you're someone who has been in church for a large part of your life, especially if you grew up going, you may find that certain Biblical truth has turned into its own spiritual cliche to you. They're those things that become second nature for you--both to hear and to say--especially to people who seem to be going through a bit of a hard time. And over time, it's easy to forget what they really mean. (OK, maybe this doesn't happen to all Christians and I'm overgeneralizing things, but I know it happens to me....so I like to think I'm not the only one. But if I really am the only one, just substitute the following "we's" to "I's" and just think to yourself "wow, I'm glad I'm not as messed up as this girl.)

Like when someone's feeling lonely or unloved and you say something like "Jesus loved you so much and wanted a relationship with you so much that He died for you."

Or when something bad happens to someone or they feel like their life is going in the totally wrong direction and you say something like "God has a plan, and His plan is perfect." (Or if you're feeling theological you throw around a really cool word like sovereign.)

Or when something really bad happens and you pull out some Romans and say, "...God causes all things to work together for good...."

There's nothing wrong with any of those things. They're all true. The last one even comes word for word out of the Bible. The only real problem that I have with any of them is that Christians like to pull them out. A lot. And the more they get pulled out, the more nonchalantly we start to say them. And the more nonchalant shout-outs they get, the more we get used to hearing them. And the more we get used to hearing them, the more our minds meet them with the "yeah, yeah, I know" that we use to respond to things that we're sick of hearing, don't really want to be hearing again, and certainly aren't going to be taking seriously any time soon.

And that's a problem. When we get to a place where we've heard it so much, truth starts to lose its meaning for us. And then truth becomes that proverbial wolf that that little boy kept crying about.

So what are we to do when we wake up one day and find the fact that Jesus loves us isn't really striking us as such a big deal anymore? I think the answer lies in looking back at the whole truth. When we do that, I think we find that there are certain parts of it that get glossed over--or sometimes totally left out--in our rush to put spiritual band-aids on the things that ail us. And we find that there are certain sins that get in the way too.

Let's start with the first one: Jesus loved you so much and wanted a relationship with you so much that He died for you. That's true. And it's awesome. But there's another side to it that people don't like to think about so much: The fact that we're so bad that we need someone to die for us.

Most people, myself really, really included, like to think that they're pretty cool. If I'm being honest, I think I'm pretty awesome. And I would definitely want to be my friend. Nothing against some good old-fashioned confidence, but this kind of thinking can be really dangerous because it can lead us to a little place called pride (and yes, Avett Brothers, I mean like the kind in the Bible that turns you bad). And that pride is what can make this particular truth start to lose its luster. It stops being remarkable that Jesus died for us when we forget that we needed to be died for. We start to think that we're good enough on our own. And suddenly this really big love that we can't understand becomes mundane and simple and we start to take it for granted. Something that is great and more than we could ever need becomes small and not enough.

When we hear Jesus loves you, Jesus loves you, Jesus loves you over and over again, at first we believe it (which is great), then we start to think that maybe we really deserve it. We forget that "the wages of sin is death" and that "Jesus came to save sinners"--not people who weren't in need of saving. And then we start to feel entitled (which is not great).

That's where the second trusty saying comes in. Because when we feel entitled, we start to feel unsatisfied. Our minds take us on a little trip that goes something like this: Jesus loves me, so I must be pretty fabulous. And if Jesus loves me, He must want really good things for me. Fabulous people who Jesus wants good things for should have really fabulous lives filled with all sorts of awesome. So since my life is neither fabulous nor filled with awesome right now, God must have forgotten about me...surely there is something wrong going on here. There are ALL KINDS of problems with that train of thought, but I'll be the first to admit that when I don't think things are going my way and I decide to throw myself a pity party that's pretty much what my brain sounds like (and yes, that's a pretty embarrassing thing to admit).

And when I'm in that place, most of the time I don't get too excited when someone tells me God's plan is perfect. My definition of perfect is a world where I can sleep in every day, read all day long, eat peanut M&Ms and brownies and stuffed crust pizza and never get sick or fat, never experience anything remotely resembling unpleasant, etc. Perfect is happy.

So when people say God's plan is perfect, the word perfect carries all these nice, comfortable connotations. And that's kind of the effect we want when we tell people this because really, most of the time, we just want them to feel better.

But that's dangerous because the truth is that when I'm hurting, or when people I care about are hurting, it's easy for me to stop believing God's plan is perfect because in my mind perfect and hurting don't go together.

The part of the truth that we like to ignore here is that, when you're talking about God's plan, perfect doesn't necessarily mean fun. Perfect doesn't mean easy. Perfect doesn't mean painless. Perfect doesn't mean we'll enjoy it. Or even like it. Perfect is often times hard. Perfect is often times painful. Perfect often times means we won't enjoy it. Or like it.

And that's ok. Because when you get to the third saying, it all starts to make more sense.

Since it's an election year, it's probably a good time to remind people that quotes taken out of context or quotes taken in pieces and parts can be manipulated and used for any purpose, good or evil. That's what happens sometimes with Romans 8:28. We like the part about things working together for good. Good, like perfect, is a happy word in our minds. So we tell people that things will work out for the good because to our flesh that implies that things will get better, the day will get sunnier, and we'll be happy again soon. Sometimes it doesn't matter what the "things" are that we're talking about. We just like to think that if we keep going things will end up good.

But that's wrong too. Just like perfect doesn't mean easy, good doesn't either. It means beneficial, but too often the things that are really beneficial are the things that are challenging. The things that are hard. The things that are painful. The things that we don't enjoy.

The end of that verse says, "...to those who are called according to His purpose." His purpose. Not ours. We have no promise that things will work together for good when we're working towards our own goals, to accomplish our own purposes. When we're seeking His will, His purpose for our lives, ultimately things will work together for the good, which is His will being accomplished and our becoming more like Christ. Not our wills being accomplished and our lives becoming more like the lives we think we should have.

Each of these lessons is a huge lesson I have to keep learning as I am turned real. I'm not nearly as awesome as I like to think. I really need Jesus. Things won't be fun and easy all the time. The more I learn these lessons, the more I find I need to be reminded that Jesus loves me. That God's plan is perfect. And that all things work together for good.

And if the English teacher you thought about at the beginning of this post was any good, that makes you realize that while the Christian life can at times be plagued by cliches, it can also at times be quite ironic.

New Name, Same Me

So I haven't blogged in quite a long time...and I decided it would be nice to do a relaunch of sorts (or basically just change the name of my blog). Originally when I started to blog, I was dedicated to writing about all the things I could do as a single girl and celebrating how great it was. Which was really just my way of ignoring that I was disappointed and hurt over the fact that my life hadn't turned out exactly as I had planned. But I learned that no matter how hard I tried I couldn't make myself super pumped about being single. I learned, however, that God could. I learned that once I let go of the idea I had of how my life was supposed to look, let myself hurt over it, and let God start to show me what His plan for me was, He would make me super pumped about it, even when it was difficult and not fun. And as hard as that was for me to do, it was one of the most beautiful things in my life. In light of that, I thought I would rebrand my blog to reflect more of where I am now, which is learning to be the woman God is calling me to be (and yes, right now a part of that is single....)

As you can see, the new title is Turning Real. It comes from this passage from The Velveteen Rabbit:

“What is REAL?" asked the Velveteen Rabbit one day... "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"
"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When [someone] loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."
"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.
"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."
"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"
"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept.
"Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand... once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always.”

This is maybe one of my favorite passages from any book. Real is a thing that is happening to me because Jesus REALLY loves me. And yes, sometimes it hurts. A lot. And it takes a long time. Sometimes I feel like too long. But I can find comfort in the fact that because I'm not turning real alone, because I have Christ with me, I'm not going to break easily. And I can find comfort in the fact that when it's over, I'll be completely different than I was when I started (mind you, it will be more radiant than shabby). And it will last for always.

So from now on, the blog will be focusing on what God is doing in my life--all the pain of it but more importantly all the joy. It will be my journey to something that will last for always. The story of how Jesus is loving me real.

Lonely (What I've Learned from TV Part 2)

If it's Sunday night at 11:00, then anyone looking for me will find me in front of my tv, possibly perilously close to hugging it, reminding myself that Jesse Pinkman isn't real so it wouldn't do me any good to get in my car, drive to Albuquerque, find him, hug him, and try to save him.

Jesse Pinkman is one of the main characters on AMC's series Breaking Bad, which I started watching this summer based on a recommendation from my sister's friend, who I have since decided has the best television taste in the history of time. The show is that good. If you haven't seen it, the basic premise is that a high school chemistry teacher named Walter White gets diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, so he starts to cook meth to earn money to leave to take care of his family. He teams up with a former student, Jesse Pinkman, who helps him cook and sell the meth. I know, you're probably thinking that a show about meth dealers has to be horrible, but, while it does show a lot of the ins and outs of the meth trade, the show is really about people.

Because he's been involved in drugs since high school, Jesse is estranged from his family, and he basically lacks any real connection to anyone. During the first three seasons, you see him trying to form connections with people, and he's almost successful, most notably his relationship with Walt, which starts as teacher-student but begins to seem more like father-son as they work together, but something happens to mess up every real relationship he starts. Season four finds Jesse totally alone, trying to numb his sense of loneliness by filling his house with people and things. There's basically a lot of shots of Jesse sitting alone or doing things alone, and he seems like a shell of a human (and that's why the episodes this season have made me so impossibly sad).

Jesse is a perfect example of the desire we all have to be known, to have people in our lives who know all about us, who understand us. We want to matter to other people.

Since I'm now 27, I'm getting to a point where more and more of my friends are married and more and more of my friends have kids. What that means is that it's getting harder and harder to make plans with people--I've found that husbands and kids can limit one's spontaneity and that it can be difficult to work around three people's schedules instead of one. I'm sure if I had a husband and a kid I would be less into going out and doing things all the time, that going out to eat and going to the movies wouldn't be on my to do list every weekend, that going to concerts and on trips wouldn't be as easy. And I know that I would be worried about my married friends if they wanted to hang out with me instead of their husbands all the time. And while I completely understand, I would be lying if I said that not having a ton of single friends didn't make me feel lonely sometimes. Or sometimes make me feel like everyone's life is passing me by and I'm just getting farther and farther behind.

Then, when it's Sunday and I go to church and watch Breaking Bad and see sad, lonely Jesse Pinkman, I'm reminded that no matter how many people I'm around, no matter how many times I hang out with other people, doing things with people will never be enough to make me feel not lonely. And I remember how many people I have in my life who really know me, how many people I have in my life who I can be honest with, how many people in my life really care about me. And how that's so much better than having people around all the time to do trivial things with. I'm also reminded that even if I had a packed social calendar plus all my close friends I would still feel lonely sometimes because no one could ever fully know me or satisfy my every need or make me feel loved every second. I remember that the only real cure for my loneliness is Christ, and I remember how when I look to other people instead of Him to cure my loneliness, it breaks His heart, just like my heart breaks when I watch Jesse Pinkman.

Satisfied (What I've Learned from TV part 1)

If you read my blog at all last summer, you may remember that during the summers I watch a lot of tv shows on DVD. Last summer, I watched Prison Break, which you may recall made me slightly paranoid for about a week. Using your mad deductive reasoning skills, you can figure out that I've watched my fair share of tv shows this summer too. The other day my mom asked me why I found television so interesting and how I thought that Jesus fit into tv. I gave her a short answer, basically telling her that I liked getting to see different perspectives and that I thought Jesus was most present in His absence (which will make more sense later). After talking with her (and being harassed by a certain wonderful friend who I think dearly missed my blog), I decided to do a four-part series entitled What I've Learned from TV in which I highlight some of the spiritual truths I've been reminded of this summer.

Recently I started watching Mad Men. A combination of multiple awards and multiple people talking about how amazing this show is made me decide to try watching it last year. I hated it. I watched five or six episodes and couldn't figure out why people thought it was so good. Despite that fact, I decided to give it another chance this summer, and I'm so glad I did. I think the problem before was that I was watching Season 3, and because the show is so character-driven, you really have to start at the beginning or things won't make sense. So a few weeks ago I settled in with Season 1 and haven't looked back.

If you've never seen the show, the basic story is about a character named Don Draper who works as the creative director at an advertising agency in the 1960s. Don has a great job that he's very good at, a beautiful wife, kids, a great car, and a house in the suburbs with a red door that I absolutely love. He's good looking, charming, and every girl he ever meets basically falls all over him. There's lots of cocktails, smoking, and really great clothes. Anyone looking at him would think he had the perfect life, but Don also has a pretty big secret and an undesirable childhood that he's run away from. Basically, he has built for himself the ideal American-dream life like Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby, which is one of my all-time favorite books, and I suspect that the parallels I see between the two characters may be one reason why I enjoy the show so much.

As you watch the show and learn more about Don's past, it becomes clear that he is the archetypal self-made man. Everything he has he has worked hard for, and he works even harder it seems to keep up the facade that his life is amazing and satisfying. In the early seasons, there are several occasions when another character will ask Don why something is being done. He always responds with "it's what people do," as if the entire motivation for his life up to this point has been trying to follow the status quo because that will, eventually, lead to a sense of being fulfilled, yet the more you watch and the more he gets, the more disillusioned he becomes. And, when you get to Season 3, you start to notice that Don begins to feel guilty somewhat for his job. He creates ad campaigns selling things to people on the pretense that these things will make them happy, but he is becoming all to familiar with what a lie that is.

Watching Don Draper, I can't help but see shades of myself. I think that if I just work hard enough, do well enough, I can build for myself a rather perfect and satisfying life. I can't count how many times I've thought to myself this Spring that I've done everything right--I went to college, have a good job, I even threw in a year as a "missionary" for good measure--and yet the result isn't what it should be. Since I worked hard, aren't I supposed to be able to have the things that I want--like my own house, a fabulous wardrobe, a husband? I mean, I live in America, and isn't that what American kids are told growing up?

But watching Mad Men is a wonderful reminder that the American dream I am sometimes so upset about not seeing come true in my life is, in fact, a far cry from the satisfaction it promises. It is actually the exact opposite; it's really a trap that would leave me forever thinking I just needed one more thing or wondering why I still wasn't happy when I had checked everything off the list, like Don Draper surely would be able to do. It is a wonderful reminder that the longing of my heart will never be satisfied by a house, or a spouse, or praise and accolades at work, or the attention of others. (Or accidentally rhyming in a blog post.) It is an example of just how unsatisfying all that is and a reminder that satisfaction comes in the form of Christ alone. So as I watch, I can't help but think to myself that Don Draper would be a lot happier if he really was late for work "because [he] was spending time with [his] family reading the Bible."

(As a side note, I have been doing things other than watching tv this summer. One of which was a Bible study doing the first book in Priscilla Shirer's Seed Series. It's kind of a funny thing...most of my tv lessons line up with what I've been learning during my time in the word this summer. Who would have thought?)

Where Have I Been??

My mom asked me this week why I had stopped blogging. Well, the short answer is that school ended and I needed a break from pretty much everything. Add to that the fact that I taught a graduate class on grammar for teachers in my district (which I had to design the curriculum and create everything for) and that my family went on vacation, and you get the basic reasons why I've been absent from the blog. But, never fear, I'm feeling recovered from the year, still single, and planning on returning with a real post this week!