Aching With Joy ~ (Part 1)

Have you ever been walking through life, feeling as though you’re on a fairly smooth road when all of a sudden the ground falls out from beneath your feet? In a matter of moments you feel as though someone has tied you to a millstone and dropped you in the ocean. You are drowning. Suffocating. You find yourself literally gasping for air. You are confident you will die. Hours go by, days, even weeks, and though you are clearly drowning you don’t die. Though the darkness wraps you in its arms and holds you tight, you keep moving. Though your heart is shattered into innumerable pieces, it keeps beating. If you’ve ever felt this way it is quite likely that you have suffered loss. If you are a woman it is quite likely that the loss was that of a child. We label it a “miscarriage” as though it is some abstract event that has happened to the body. The medical profession gives you their apology yet consoles themselves with the fact that your “intrauterine pregnancy failed.” Within days, sometimes hours, your body will progress through the stages of expelling “grey matter” and “tissue.” So what are the apologies for? The loss. Of what you might ask? Of dreams. Hopes. Expectations. The loss of what might have been. As women we are told to grieve those hopes and are given the freedom to recognize that the loss was not our fault. There wasn’t anything we could have done about it. It’s time to move forward. Or is it? The child of God who navigates these waters finds her mind pulled in every direction. While the information paper from the hospital says, “failed intrauterine pregnancy” her heart screams in agony, “My baby is gone.” Though the nurse says, “it’s grey matter and tissue” her spirit writhes as she watches her body reject a life and drain it from within. And while the doctors apologize for the loss of her “hopes” she searches desperately to find lasting hope in the midst of a chaos never before known to her mind. Our culture has taught us to do whatever is necessary to move on silently. To “try again” and forget about the “accident.” Yet our conscience calls all the louder that we are mothers with empty arms. That this was a life, intimately created by God to bring Him ultimate glory. That all life deserves honour. That in the darkness there is light. That in great brokenness there is healing. That in great desolation there is hope. On January 6, 2015 I had the incredible experience of seeing two blue lines for the first time in my life. I was 5 weeks pregnant. On January 31, 2015 I watch helplessly as life began draining from my body. Over the following days and weeks I battled with my thinking and the wretchedness of the tomb of flesh in which I live. I recognized for the first time my finiteness and experienced in living colour the stench of death which existed only because my body was riddled with sin. I ached, physically and emotionally, with a grief and pain which laughed at me as it reminded me that I was a sojourner in an alien land. An interim preacher stood from the pulpit and excitedly reminded us to “have joy” and “be happy!” because our hope was in the reality of “one day” being in heaven. A true concept, but from that message came a need to write this series and clarify that joy doesn’t require happiness; living in heaven is not the end all of our hope; waking up alive tomorrow shouldn’t be our goal. Intrigued? If so, I invite you to read on. I can’t say my writing is worth it, but I can say that God’s Word is.

Joy Isn’t Happiness

A passage often used to support the “Joy=Happiness” argument is James 1:2-3 which says, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kind, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.” Other passages such as I Peter 1:16-17 and Matthew 5:11-12 voice a similar perspective. Some have read these passages and interpreted them to mean that we should get excited about trials because we know they will produce steadfastness. In essence, when we hit trials we should not cry, groan, and maybe even grieve. NO! We need to muster up a smile, get out there, and show the world our happy dance! We are in a trial which is producing steadfastness! Go Team! Go!….Not exactly. What great hope we strip from those suffering around us when we rebuke them for not being “happy” in the midst of their trial. What a burden we place on our grieving brothers and sisters when they feel obligated to pretend that everything is “ok” at church. What a disservice we have done when we teach others that a lack of happiness in trials is sin. If it is true that joy is equal with happiness in these passages, and Scripture clearly commands that we be joyful, then did not Christ Himself sin when he, “in an agony. . .prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground” (Luke 22:44)? Clearly happiness was not what the author intended to express.These passages noted above must be interpreted with a broader context in mind. That is, in the midst of great pain and spiritual warfare, trials must be viewed as a blessing. How can I view the loss of my child as a blessing? By trusting an All Knowing God who has promised that this horrific agony will prove the genuineness of my faith, produce an eternal reward, and ultimately bring the greatest glory to Himself (Romans 8:28-29). 

Heaven Isn’t Our Hope

After reading that heading you might be ready to brand me as a heretic. Ever since I was a child in Sunday school I’ve heard the old teaching that those who are saved find their hope in going to heaven. From mothers and fathers who have lost children it is extremely common to hear the statement, “We have hope because we know we will see our child again.” As painful as this might be, I must suggest that if our hope lies solely in the belief that we will see our children again in heaven we have created an idol. If the reason we long for heaven is primarily so that we can be reunited with our children, and not because we yearn and ache for a face to face, completely redeemed, daily relationship with God in His presence, then our children have become our god. I Peter 1:3-5 says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to His great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” Unfortunately, it is a natural tendency to view heaven as the jackpot bubblegum machine. We get this mentality that if we can just endure today we will eventually get to heaven and get repaid for all we put up with on earth.We think, "I may not have a nice house now, but I’ll get my “mansion” (I’ll let you believe that) when I get to heaven." "Poor little Christian me may not have the nicest stuff in the world but my mailbox will be made of gold when I get to heaven." We read the above verse and our flesh makes a beeline for the “inheritance” part of the passage. I don’t know about you, but those flannel graph boards I saw as a kid interpreted the “imperishable, undefiled, and unfading” terms as chests of gold, jewelry, and crowns. How far from the truth we have fallen when we believe this. Here I stand broken, corrupt, and disfigured by the curse of sin. My body has gone against nature and, to date, has killed three of my children. In fact, my body is a tomb of death and decay. Yet, in God’s great mercy he has taken what should be considered untouchable and has given it new life. God, in His mercy, gave His Son to die and defeat death through the resurrection. Why? Because it is through this death that I have a living hope. God did not redeem me because He found something good in me that was deserving. Rather, God redeemed me because He wanted to display His glory through my utter undeserving humanity. What then is this inheritance in which I hope? My eternal life through adoption and my righteous standing before God in Christ. This inheritance is imperishable in that it cannot be disfigured by the curse of sin. Rather, it will be completed at the final redemption of our broken bodies when they are made whole, glorified and freed from the curse. This inheritance which is undefiled will not be contaminated by the putrid stench of our filthy rags of death and sin. This inheritance which is unfading will never result in loss but will continually, abundantly deepen in worth. Heaven and it’s glitter is not our hope. Heaven and it’s contents cannot be our security and our reason to press forward. Rather, we have a living hope, a confidence to press on because we will one day be reunited with Christ for eternity. A hope that propels us forward through the pain and suffering because we will one day be free from this body of sin and captivated before the throne of our God.

Are you curious what our end goal must be in the suffering we face? Are you wondering how we are to apply the truths outlined here? I hope that you will continue to the second part of this post for the answer to these questions. Thank you for reading!

Love,
Rachel

Click Here to Read Aching With Joy ~ Part 2