Seriously

Sometimes I am so serious.  

Too too serious about things that other naturally think are funny.   Lately this has been on my mind.  

When I was a little girl, my dad would need to pull me aside and say, "Jessica, I can tell you are worried.  You and me, we're the same.  But I don't want worry to fill your life."  And then he would tell me about both spiritual and practical things that would help me find my way out of it.  That was real care.   

You can make this academic, but it shouldn't be.  On a very real level, you're supposed to hear it like I did when I was a kid, when my dad would pull me aside and help me and say it plain.  Keeping things light is also a release from a burden you were never meant to bear. 


On some level it's just in the make up of my natural bent toward life. 
But I know I can't just stop there.  I think there's more to it.  



In 2013, I began to feel that God was picking me up and putting me in new places.  Before then I had many obvious reasons and situations that caused me to lament.  I hated the time, but there it was, right in front of me.  I began to learn how to suffer, and not in the American way, where it's all gone by the end of the day.  Or at least the week.  I lived it, and began to see that you can be happy and sad and feel all bittersweet in the middle, and you're still ok.  In fact, you're really more ok than you'd ever first think. 

In this time, I cried desperate prayers, I sang about brokenness and felt the meaning of it. I lived squarely in this season, knowing I had to march through it.  People said I was brave, but I didn't feel brave at all. 

Sometimes I'd look at myself in the mirror and wonder if there would ever be a day when my eyes didn't look so sad.  I thought I was tricking the world.  It turns out they were just marching through it all with me.  What felt like chronic suffering though eventually began to fade away.  In its place, circumstances and heart have changed and shifted me.  

And very suddenly now, that chapter of life feels closed.  It's like I'm relearning how to be, with the knowledge that any future tragic thing will have a season set apart all its own.  It's not to be feared.   It's meant for another time.  This time is meant for joy.    I've been remembering things of a joy-filled life that a previous self would have known so surely.  

The Jessica Christians before 2008 would have, I assure you, been afraid to know that this would have to be relearned.  Growing up, I did often feel very joyful.   I'm grateful this is coming back.    

The thing is, for all of its treachery, I wouldn't want to wipe away all of the heart-shaping life lessons I've had to walk through.  Everyone says that at the end of movies, but it's true.  It's why you cry when the credits roll.  Suffering has its place.   It melds its way into people in such intricate fashions.  And it's part of the story, which is the thing that sometimes gets little credit. 

May I always give more and MORE credit to God's story in my life.   

A few months ago someone prayed for me and they spoke words that I could clearly see and imagine.  They talked about joy like it would be tipped over from a large bucket, propped up against the door, waiting for me to walk under it.  The thought of it has not gone away, and for good reason. 

I long for this kind of joy again.  I think the admission of this is a good start.   My mom told me to ask the Holy Spirit to make me more lighthearted.  So that's what I've been doing.  

Not just because other people in my world would probably benefit from this change.  But also because Christians can be joyful, despite hard circumstances.   What's more, cynicism was a little glass shred in my spirit, which I thought I was hiding, and did so much damage instead.  I thought I was being savvy about it, but I wasn't.  I was just hurting people.  

So I believe that there's this amazing breadth of life and beauty that can be found in truly being able to laugh something off.  Not abuse or cruelty or the moment when you absolutely must take a stand.  I'm talking about the kind of light angle on life that keeps you from being too burdened by what you're not supposed to be burdened by at all.  When I focus on the life of Jesus, I remember this joy.  And in this short life, I'd like to be typified as someone who shares it.  

Today though, when I looked in the mirror after just waking up, my hair looked so awfully terribly tangled and messed up that I openly laughed.
 
I'm figuring that's a good start.