In the MANY years I’ve been struggling with chronic illness and other chronic issues, I can’t count the number of times Christians have told me “this too shall pass.”  Unfortunately, it may not pass in my lifetime.  I’ve also been told that though there is weeping in the night that joy comes in the morning.  Unfortunately, that morning is a long time in coming.  These things speak of what is coming for us after this life: the joy we will feel when we finally see heaven, our true home.  It’s not meant that we will feel better when we wake up or that our troubles will be gone. Further, they usually cite Job and how God allowed him to be tested and then restored Job to greater than he had prior.  However, God doesn’t promise us that He will restore us or take away our pain in this lifetime. He never took away Paul’s thorn in his side.   Job is a different lesson for us. It’s a lesson in knowing God is there and being faithful no matter what is going on in our lives.  Paul is a lesson to us in living for and being faithful to Him despite the troubles we encounter in this world. They are lessons of the agape love of God and our heavenly home after this lifetime, but not necessarily of a charmed life here on earth.

So I started looking at another saying I’ve heard over the years that Joy is different from happiness.  We might not be happy about our circumstances, but we are to have joy.  Makes a kind of sense, doesnt’ it?  You may not be happy about being in pain every day for 35 yrs, that you’ve been in financial upheaval for 10 yrs, or that you no longer have the use of a part of  your body or can no longer see a loved one.  However, you can have joy in the Lord knowing that after you have run the race, fought the good fight, been faithful to God in this life, you will have joy in heaven!

Does that mean we don’t get sad, upset, depressed, angry?  I don’t think so.  Does it mean we always feel happy or joyous?  I doubt it.  Does any human being feel joy at the loss of life, quality of life or about having to struggle to survive?  No!  But do we need to stay that way?  No we don’t!  How we get ourselves out of a funk due to trials is a topic I’m going to cover at a later date as I’m still working through it myself.  I stay busy, concentrate on making people laugh and keeping my sanity.

But this got me thinking about what joy and happy really mean.  So I googled and found this article!  Was not at all what I was expecting and it also doesn’t deal with how we struggle with chronic issues or get through them, but I thought it was important enough to share with you.  Here’s an excerpt from the article to give you an idea of why I was shocked.

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“An ungrounded, dangerous separation of joy from happiness has infiltrated the Christian community. The following is typical of the artificial distinctions made by modern Christians:

Joy is something entirely different from happiness. Joy, in the Biblical context, is not an emotion. . . . There is a big difference between joy and happiness. Happiness is an emotion and temporary; joy is an attitude of the heart.

Judging from such articles (and there are hundreds more out there), you’d think the distinction between joy and happiness is biblical. It’s not.“

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For now, let me say that I understand if you feel sad, angry, overwhelmed, frustrated, in pain, etc.  I feel it too, but by sharing our struggles, looking for answers, and trying to find the bright side of things we can use the struggles and trials we go through to bring light into a dark world.  More on that later too.

While we may not be able to feel joy or happiness (or even that God is with us) during times of extreme pain or stress or sadness, we can hold onto the promise that God IS with us and loves us and has a plan for our lives despite what we may be going through.  We have a purpose and we can strive to fulfill it with help from each other.  Amen?