How do you find Joy?

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I feel like the concept of joy is eluding me. I understand trust. I understand hope. But, joy is so closely identified with happiness that I am having trouble separating it.

Hope is not an emotion. Trust is not an emotion. Faith is not an emotion. Is Joy an emotion? It must not be–but what is it?

I’m also thinking that sorrow is often juxtaposed with joy. However, the sorrow of the cross leads to the joy of the resurrection. Is sorrow then necessary for joy? Or maybe just in this post fall world.

Adam and Eve must have had perfect joy pre fall. And, prefall, they had no sorrow.

I feel like the Holy Spirit is desiring opening my heart to this virtue–but I just can’t grasp it. It is good though to discover that I don’t understand it. It must be the first step.
 
JMJ Theresa:
I’m also thinking that sorrow is often juxtaposed with joy.
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I think this is true. I don’t mean to make light of your sufferings by my example below, but sometimes looking at the physical world that God created helps me better understand the spiritual world.

I am a chocolate lover. I don’t just like the sweetness of chocolate–if I only enjoyed the sweet then I would eat sugar straight and it wouldn’t be chocolate. Yet cocoa powder alone tastes disgusting. (One of my children got into the baking chocolate squares one day, took a bite, then spit it right out.) Neither cocoa powder alone nor sugar alone tastes as good to me as they taste when combined together. I think that joy and suffering combine like that, making the joys in life bittersweet. And to this chocolate lover, bittersweet is most enjoyable.
 
Do you think that joy could be just resting in God’s love?

Thanks Jennifer for the links. I have never thought about being a conduit for God’s joy. I thought it had to come from me. It has really given me a new direction to think about.
 
Theresa,

I am so very sorry for your loss! hugs Over the last year, I have struggled through the sadness and pain of grief. I lost my fiance last year in an accident, and with him marriage, children, a whole future. Finding joy has been a huge challenge… it felt impossible sometimes, especially during the first 6 months.

There is no short answer I can give you, but I’ll share some things that helped me to find joy, or to put myself in a condition in which to find joy:
  1. The support of my parish priests, staff, and grief counselor. They were there for me when I didn’t know where to go or what to do. The compassion, charity, and understanding from everyone at church was tangible. Just being with them comforted me, even if I couldn’t think of anything to say. They understood. You might see if your church has a grief ministry. If so, they can give you guidance. And just talking about your feelings can take a huge burden off.
  2. Keeping a journal of what you’re feeling and thinking helps too. Writing provides a safe, secure outlet for expressing what you aren’t able or willing to talk about to anyone. Writing involves a unique thought process in which you may be able to think about things differently. Also, in the future, whenever you worry that you’ve not made any progress, you can look back at what things were like a few months or weeks ago, and realize that you have made progress, you are doing it.
  3. Take about 10 minutes every single day to just be with God. Don’t worry about talking with words. Just quiet yourself and be there. Desire His presence. Desire for Him to fill you up. Desire to give in to His will. It sounds very simple, but I have found amazing peace of mind in this practice. And I’ve found that peace of mind gives peace to my world, no matter what may be happening. And that can help me to find joy in my life and in the world–be it nature, my cats, my work, a good book, or my favorite foods.
  4. Following from that, it’s been good for me to treat myself to things like nature, playing with or holding my cats, buying a new book, or treating myself to my favorite foods. I’ve never been a huge “outdoors” person, but ** I have found nature to be just about the most comforting and enjoyable thing. When I feel the wind, look at the trees, hear the birds, and watch the clouds or stars, I feel God’s own joy, the joy of Creation, and the joy He wants to share with us.** So often, we don’t pay it enough attention. If you can’t do it for yourself, imagine having your child with you (personally, I feel that our loved ones are with us, constantly, and they can see and hear us and our world)–imagine introducing your child to the beauty of the natural world. In doing so, you may feel as if you yourself are experiencing it for the very first time! If you’re like me, you’ll feel an enormous joy and wonder and excitement–it is like being a child again!
  5. Give yourself permission to grieve, and to feel whatever you feel at any given moment even if it’s a negative emotion. Be patient, be understanding, be gentle. Treat yourself as if you would treat someone you love dearly. In doing so, you will share in God’s love for you, and your bond with God will be strengthened. You may feel angry at God sometimes–even that is fine. God can take it. He understands grief, He has experienced it. Believe it or not, He has created and given it to us as a blessing to heal us–it is as natural, normal, and essential as breathing. It may not feel like healing, but that is because this is unlike any wound you’ve ever received, and requires a healing unlike any you’ve ever known. Just remember that the Lord is at your side, and that He bears the brunt of even the worst suffering. Realizing that has always brought me intense peace and joy!
  6. Don’t think too much about time and its passing. Take each moment as it comes and release it. Measuring time in minutes or hours or days can be overwhelming. Instead, just measure time with the breaths you breathe and the steps you walk. No one breath or one step lasts forever. They come, they are, and they pass. Every one is new. Every one can contain fresh hope and fresh joy. The ones that don’t will quickly be behind you, but the ones that do will always stay with you.
Well, I don’t know if I’ve helped you at all. I hope you find your joy soon. It is there, I know it is. Actually, that reminds me: I’ve often prayed to St. Anthony of Padua to help me “find” (or rather re-discover) my joy and the many blessings in my life. He seems to always get the job done! 🙂

Please feel free to contact me if you ever want to talk or have questions. Know that my thoughts and prayers are with you and your family.
 
JMJ Theresa:
Do you think that joy could be just resting in God’s love?

Thanks Jennifer for the links. I have never thought about being a conduit for God’s joy. I thought it had to come from me. It has really given me a new direction to think about.
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Oh, you’re welcome! I believe you’ve been through the worst of the worst. There is no way you’re going to heal yourself. Sometimes we just have to “stand still” or is it, “be still” and wait on the Lord. He’s the only one who’s going to bring your Joy back into your life. Try to believe that much for now. That’s all. Don’t try to be Joyful right now. You’re going through a difficult time. It’s not up to you to restore yourself. It’s God’s job to restore a broken heart. And you’re doing all that is humanly possible. He’s working on restoring you this very minute. You’re Joy is on the way. Your peace is on the way. Your hope and faith in God are bringing all that you need. Thank Him for every second that passes because you KNOW that He’s bringing Joy back at some set time and you’re getting closer with every passing second. That’s your Hope revealing your faith in Him. That’s you giving Him the green light to come into your life. His time is not always our time. That stinks, but it has to be that way.
 
I am so sorry to hear of your miscarriage and the depression. This is a very difficult time for you.

Joy can be found by, with trust, asking for it and persevering in that prayer and in the face of suffering even, and being confident that God will grant it in His time. It is not easy to suffer and I guess that is why suffering bears that title…else surely it would not be truly suffering.
There is a joy that is that of the emotions and entirely human and natural…spiritual joy is when I recognize The Lord and His Ways and rejoice in my spirit because it is The Lord, no matter where my human emotions may be…hence one can experience spiritual joy in the midst of suffering - perhaps through the knowledge I am united to Jesus in His Passion in a unique way which is the nature of trials, difficulty and sufferings…and in truth a great priviledge though painful…or perhaps because I insight God’s Permissive Will in my life allowing me (not willing me) to suffer. I rejoice spiritually to insight God’s Presence in my life in some way no matter where humanly my emotions may be. Spiritual Joy in all things as being from God in some way is another of God’s Gifts that one can ask for perseveringly in confident trust God wll grant it in His time.

Spiritual Joy resides in the will, although it can be but not necessarily united to emotional joy. This is reflected in the words of Jesus “I have longed to eat this Passover with you”. Jesus knows it is his last meal with his Apostles before a cruel death and what is to be a very special meal and the crowning of his Incarnation…yet he longs to celebrate it because He knows our redemption is at hand which He is to efffect through His Obedience to cruel death. His will rejoices in this and who knows perhaps his emotional self did too. But spiritual joy is not necessarily felt emotionally.

St. Paul tells us “we make up in our own bodies what was lacking in the Sufferings of Christ”. This is a stunning statement…and indicates that our own sufferings small and great are redemptive and are at one with and intrinsic to The Passion and thus suffering is sanctified and intrinsic to our Baptismal vocation. There is a real occasion for spiritual joy - how honoured and priviledged we are in suffering…tho it is not easy nor would it be suffering if it were.

Peace and Joy in all things…Barb
 
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