Monday, October 28, 2013

What makes joy elusive and cynicism easy and stress normal?

Ann Voskamp writes,

Joy is the way to live bravest of all.

What makes joy elusive and cynicism easy and stress normal and why do women choke down pills and food and shame instead of choking out what’s wrong? What makes us scared to death to be real… so we just live dead?

It's not only women who do that, Ann.

They say anger makes us anxious, that anger makes us depressed, all this rage that we keep swallowing that makes us weak and sick.

This anger that we keep downing that gives us a soul ache.

Anger can kill you if you bury it — or if you don’t give it to God.

Venting hurts your-self, Biblical lamenting heals your-soul — bravely expressing pain while unwavering in the unrelenting goodness of God.

Paul hadn’t just suggested it — he commanded that we must:

… “be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Thess. 5:16–18).

But, Ann writes about a man she knows and a woman she knows, and Ann asks,

And there’s this wife who can’t get out of bed and a man breaking for her, breaking himself for her, and a woman trying to open her hand to a God who may take away the deepest prayers and parts of her, and we’re all breaking here, we’re all choking down all this hurt, and how in the name of glory is there this command to be joyful?

Giving thanks in all things is how to pray continually — and this is the way to get to the joy. This is the way to do God’s will for your right now.

Anger makes us sick and weak and bound and the therapy is in the thanks.

Thanks therapy is God’s prescription for joy.

This isn’t trite — this is treatment. Breathing oxygen to live, it can seem ridiculously simple too. Jesus always leaves the option open for you to choose: “Do you want to be well?”

Sometimes we hurt so bad, we can’t even think to say yes, we forget how to mouth thanks. I stand with the man who just keeps holding a woman, who just keeps breathing thanks for her until she remembers and breathes on her own.

At this point Ann shows photos of children playing amongst fallen leaves:

Everything that falls, turned back to thanks, unlikely therapy turning a fallen world.

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