Joy Comes in the Mo(u)rning

     I will extol you, O Lord, for you have drawn me up

          and have not let my foes rejoice over me.

    O Lord my God, I cried to you for help,

          and you have healed me.

    O Lord, you have brought up my soul from Sheol;

          you restored me to life from among those who go down to the pit.

    Sing praises to the Lord, O you his saints,

          and give thanks to his holy name.

    For his anger is but for a moment,

          and his favor is for a lifetime.

    Weeping may tarry for the night,

          but joy comes with the morning. (Psalm 30:1-5)

Life is joy, and pain. It is happiness, and sorrow. Many wise people have observed that the magnitude of our sorrow both comes from and reflects our joy. Those things that make us happiest are the hardest to lose. It seems like common sense, and yet I find myself forgetting. I find myself hiding from my sorrow and lamenting my pain, as though angst were unnatural or unhealthy. Yet, it isn't either of those things. God created sorrow. Without it, there would be no joy. We would all be walking around in a constant state of numbness; of course, we wouldn't realize this because we would only know one emotion. We wouldn't be joyful even if we were full of joy. Thus, sorrow. It serves so many purposes. It is natural, and, in the right doses and for the right reasons, it is healthy. In the intense sorrow I have felt over the past two weeks, I have come to realize that it is even more: it is good. It is yet another reason to praise God.

Let us say, then, that joy comes in the mourning. Or perhaps it doesn't. But it should. We should find a kind of joy in our angst. I don't mean in a sadistic way; I'm not referring to Voltaire's pleasure in having no pleasure. We should rejoice in our humanity, in our being what God made us to be. We should also rejoice in the fact that we feel sorrow because God made us in His image. Our ability to feel sorrow is a reflection of God's own tendency to feel sorrow. In fact, it is because of God's sorrow and pain that we have eternity. 

Working to be thankful for our pain, to rejoice in it, is a difficult task. But we are commanded to do it. "Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!" (Phil. 4:4). Paul felt that this command needed to be repeated. He drove the point home by writing, near the end of his letter to the Philippians, "...for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need." (4:11b-12).

Love, Leonard Cohen famously wrote, is "a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah." This Hallelujah - this praise in the midst of and because of our sorrow - is so important. I've been wasting the days away, telling myself that time heals everything and that I simply have to wait until I feel better. That isn't right. Trying to hasten away our pain only cheapens the joy that we once had and will have. I don't want to cheapen it. The sharper the angst, the greater the joy was or will be. In my case, my happiness was unbounded. I knew that it would end abruptly. I made the decision to pursue a path that would end in hurt. It was worth it, though; it was worth every tear. So, then, let those tears be cried with purpose. Let me not try to chase my pain away. Let me think on it, and be thankful for it, and remember this season in my life as one that Christ carried me through. And, of course, let me remember that, no matter what I feel now, "joy comes in the morning."