Finding Joy In The Darkness

I wasn’t raised in religion, and I’ve always viewed the concept of organized religion with a sort of courteous skepticism.  Rhonda was born into a devout family and always expected to marry someone with faith as deep as hers and to raise her children in the Christian Church.  I could probably write a dozen posts on how our relationship has made each of us reexamine our views on religion and faith, and I just may do that someday, but for now let’s just say I’ve come to adjust my stance over time.  All of which is really just a long, roundabout way of explaining how I came to be in South Lake Presbyterian Church yesterday evening.

Before I go any further, I feel it’s important to explain that you’re not going to see me evangelizing here (I still consider myself an open-minded agnostic, and quite likely always will) and the point of this post could be explained just as well in a secular environment as a church one.  I just happened to have had this revelation in church, so the church stays in.

Our family has been going through some tough times lately.  I was laid off from my job in early April, Harper spent almost a week in the hospital preparing for and recovering from surgery for pyloric stenosis, the company that Rhonda works for has declared bankruptcy, sold itself, and will be closing some stores (we won’t know until later this week whether or not hers will be one of them), the car that I still owe a significant amount of money on threw a rod and will cost more to repair than it is worth, and we had to go deeper in debt to get a new car.  I’ve been taking each setback very personally, which has resulted in deep depression.

Which is why the sermon that Rev. Carrie Smith-Coons gave last night was exactly what I needed to hear when I needed to hear it.  You can download a recording of the sermon on the church’s website, but the basics were this:  Carrie spoke about the Israelites and their struggle finding God after Moses led them from Egypt and they’re left wandering the desert for years.   It was a great story and sermon, but the important nugget of message that spoke to me was that just because times are tough and it’s hard to see God, doesn’t mean that God isn’t there.  You can still find God in your life, you just have to take the time to look.

I promised that this works on a secular level, and it does.  Replace “God” with “joy”  or “happiness” or any other positive emotion, and it’s just as true.

One thing Carrie suggested was ending each day by remembering the best moment of the day, the one that made you the most happy or you felt that God was most present, and thanking God for that moment.  This works if you’re into prayer, but you can do this in a secular sense by just acknowledging that moment in whatever way you see fit.  The important thing is to acknowledge those good things in your life, no matter how much other crap may have occurred.

Carrie also suggested taking the hardest moment of your day, the moment that it was the hardest to find God, and laying that before him/her/it/them, to acknowledge the parts of your life that you need help with.  This also works on a secular level as well, by acknowledging the parts of your life that need the most work and will benefit the most from your (constructive) focus.

I’ve decided that I’m going to give this a try.  I’m not entirely sure whether or not it will end up on this blog, but I am going to begin taking time to acknowledge all the good things in my life.  I will also acknowledge the bad,  to see if I can find a pattern, but I will not dwell on the negative.

The darkest moment of my day was probably realizing that I’m going to have to break some promises that I made to people I care about in order to make sure my immediate family is taken care of.  I’m going to do my best to make it up to them as soon as possible and not put myself or them in a situation that this will happen again.

My brightest moments – and this will probably come up alot – were probably seeing the smiles on the faces of my boys, especially Harper.  His hospital stay was a nightmare for me, to the point that I actually haven’t been able to write about it, but the fact that he is so healthy and happy now really puts things into perspective.  Nick is growing up so fast and makes me proud in all the ways that he seems much more grown up than he actually is.  We had Jude’s birthday party this past weekend, and the times that I get to spend with him always cheer me up.  I often wish that he lived with me like my other two boys, but I know he has a great support network with his mom and grandmothers and I’m very thankful for that.

Also, a bright side to having to go deeper in debt to get that new car? It’s a minivan and we really need a minivan to haul around three boys. So yeah…that could work out for the best.

So yeah, that’s all for now.  What are your moments of joy?  Try to find them and focus on them, especially when times seem darkest.

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