And So It Begins

     The official kick-off of my Year of Living Joyfully was two days ago on January 1. The idea was a good one - a new way of living to begin with the New Year. Sort of like a new year's resolution, but with a different twist. That different twist being the thoughtful, well-organized Plan for Joy that my daughter gave me for Christmas. After receiving the gift from her a few days before Christmas I  looked forward to the New Year and the kick-off with excited anticipation. This was going to be great!

     It did not begin well.

     The last few days of 2012 saw me sliding down into a deeper that usual sadness. A deep, almost paralyzing darkness enveloped me. I felt disconnected from God to the point of doubting if I have a real relationship with him at all. My wife and I fought with each other, which we don't do all that often. Neither she nor God seemed much like friends to me. I felt distant and lost. The only thing that seemed close was my despair that was all around and through me.

     Not a great way to begin a Year of Living Joyfully.

     I did, on the 1st, open up the Plan. The first assignment was to read a verse from the prophet Isaiah, one of my daughter's favorite verses, which is a prophecy of what Jesus would come to do. The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to those who are bound (Isaiah 61:1). Then, having read this verse I was to think of one thing that day that had brought me Joy and record it in the journal.

     I couldn't. I couldn't think of one thing that had brought me Joy that day. And, even more, as I read the verse two or three times, I felt even farther away from Joy than ever. I didn't feel like any of those things were true for me. I was poor (in spirit), I was brokenhearted, I was captive (to my sadness) and felt imprisoned. I felt worse after reading that announcement of Jesus' ministry because I felt like he had not done any of these things for me.

     Today, two days later, the paralyzing darkness has lifted some. I can see some light and I can move again. From today's vantage point I can see that those feelings I had of distance and loss, of abandonment, of despair, were just that, feelings. They were not reality. God has not left me, he's keep his promise to never leave me or forsake me. My wife is still with me, pulling for me, encouraging me, praying for me, loving me. Today, that prophecy about the ministry of Jesus does seem, at least a little, like a promise to me. Today I choose to believe that Jesus has brought good news for me, he is binding up my broken heart, he has set me free. And, my prayer, for today, is that I will live and walk in that reality. That's where I have found Joy today, in holding on to those truths from Bible, that Jesus has set me free so, regardless of what I feel, I am free indeed.

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This Is For You Dad

My Daughter's blog today addresses issues of depression, both hers and my profound sadness, a little of what it was like to be my daughter and her encouragement to me to seek Joy. It's a touching read and I hope you'll take the time to see for yourself.

Thank you Daughter: I love you, Dad


I was originally going to just e-mail this to my father but he has decided to go though the gift we gave in publicly on his blog.

So a little of back story. Depression is a terrible thing. I have struggled with bouts of it. Where I am tired, and apathetic and nothing seems to be important, or matter,or make me happy and the worst part of it for me is that I don't feel like this is a bad thing, because nothing really seems to matter. I just want to read and sleep. Reading takes me out of my world where nothing matters into a place where things do and people feel. The first time this hit me after we were married I did not realize how much it had altered my behavior until I saw how much it worried my husband. My depression is very manageable. Control stress, eat well, get enough sleep and I am usually fine.

My father has a much harder time managing what he calls his "profound sadness." Its hard to be the child of someone who rarely seem happy with you. I mean my dad did everything he could to let us know he loved us and he was proud of us. He never missed a single track meet. But there was the underlying current that none of this was enough to be happy. As an adult I understand this much better and as a child I don't think I was aware of it as it was pretty much a constant, but it makes my heart break for him. So I put together a little appointment style calendar with bible verses, questions, and random acts of kindness that I hoped would help him discover how to choose to be joyful even when sadness seems to be the only real option. You see it is my belief that joy is different than happiness. Joy is one of the fruit of the spirit according to the list in Galatians. This means Joy comes from God. It is something that is there despite, or perhaps regardless of circumstances something you can choose to have if you only reach out for it.
Read the rest of my daughter's blog at:

http://homegrownstrawberries.blogspot.com/2012/12/you-still-need-cough-suppressant.html#more


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You can chose to disable or selectively turn off our cookies or third-party cookies in your browser settings, or by managing preferences in programs such as Norton Internet Security. However, this can affect how you are able to interact with our site as well as other websites. This could include the inability to login to services or programs, such as logging into forums or accounts.

Joy - Our Deepest Desire

            In yesterday’s blog post I shared that in 2013 I’m going to attempt A Year of Living Joyfully. As a Christmas gift my daughter gave me a year long plan of Bible verses to meditate upon and projects to do that will point me toward Joy. I also shared that as a life-long sufferer from profound sadness (depression?) I was looking forward to see if this pursuit of Joy might turn out to be the antidote for which I’ve always longed.

            As I prepare for the official kick off of A Year of Living Joyfully next week on January 1 I’m spending this week thinking about Joy. What is it? Why is important? Is there something to Joy that’s more profound than just “feeling good?” Here are a couple of things I came across yesterday.

C.S. Lewis, in his book Surprised by Joy, wrote that Joy is “an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction." Lewis used Joy in a very specific sense. He did not think of Joy as just a synonym happiness, as many of us do. For him Joy was the deepest of all desires that could never be satisfied by any of the pleasures of this world – it as an other-worldly quality that can only be satisfied by an intimate encounter with God.

Another way of looking at it is that the desire for Joy was hardwired into humans at the time of our creation. It is part of being in the Image of God that our deepest longings are not for this world but are for God.

The 13^th Century theologian Thomas Aquinas wrote something similar, “Man cannot live without joy.” The desire for Joy is part of what it means to be human. But Aquinas also went on with the profound observation that when people do not find Joy from their relationship with God, then are then prone to start searching for Joy from the things of the world, things that can never really satisfy. “When man is deprived is true spiritual joys it is necessary that he become addicted to carnal pleasures.”

I know exactly what Aquinas was saying. As I’ve previously written, in my best moments, I’ve tried to treat my sadness with a variety of positive means – nutrition, exercise, meditation, spiritual disciplines, counseling, and medication. But there have been many times, when the sadness as been unbearable, in some of my worst moments, when I have turned to “carnal pleasures” in an attempt to escape – food, drink, unhealthy relationships, entertainment, to name a few. The results have almost always been dreadful.

This desire, no more than that, this need for Joy is not optional. It is a God-given thing designed to drive people, to drive me, toward him. Other things will not satisfy, not for long. It is the way people and the world were designed from the beginning. Ultimate Joy is only found him.

These are some of my thoughts today about what real Joy is and where it is found. What do you think about Joy?

 

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A Year of Living Joyfully

     As I've previously shared on this blog, I suffer from sadness. For as long as I can remember a deep and profound sadness has doggedly followed me. I've never known if it was because I was simply born with a melancholy personality or if what I have is actual clinical depression. I've tried all kinds of things over the years to treat my sadness from changing my diet to increasing how much exercise I get to various therapies with different counselors to medications. Though many of these things have helped some, the sadness always returns.

     This year for Christmas my older daughter and her family gave me a gift that just might make 2013 a different experience for me. She gave me "A Year of Living Joyfully."
  
     Joy is an antidote for sadness. Joseph Campbell said that joy will burn out pain and that includes the pain of depression. Of course I've known that for sometime. But how does one remain joyful when all you feel is sad? I've never known. Charles Kuralt said that joy in our lives is often hard to find and look hard for it. I've never known where to look. My daughter has given me a very practical way to not only look for Joy but to find it.

     How did she do it? She took a 2013 calendar and went throughout the year scheduling Bible verses to read and little projects to do that will point me toward Joy. She also encouraged me to take time each day to find something that gives me Joy and record it in the calendar like a journal. I think these are great ideas. In fact, I think that these ideas are so great I've decided to write about them here on this blog. I hope that you will you join me here and follow along for A Year of Living Joyfully?

     Even though the project doesn't officially begin until January 1, I can't help myself from jumping the gun and starting early. So what's one thing that gives me Joy today?

     Having a daughter that loves me enough to give me A Year of Living Joyfully.

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