Joy in Trials

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds
because the testing of your faith produces perseverance.
James 1:2

Dear Friends,

This verse carried me through my first high school break-up when I dramatically felt I couldn’t breathe without that boy near me. It’s carried me through my husband’s debilitating anxiety that drove us to E.R.’s multiple midnights a week while newly married. It’s carried me through my church’s unraveling leading to my own deep wounds of abandonment. It’s carried me through crushing infertility, 13 unsuccessful adoptions, three beautiful adoptions, and into these chaotic teenage years today. And it’s been carrying me through a global pandemic marked by more loss than I thought possible. 

In some ways it feels like life has been one, long wilderness, like I’ve just learned to walk unbalanced for so long that I can’t quite remember what childhood simplicity feels like. Perhaps this is why Jesus invites his disciples to see life like a child—to see what truly is instead of what isn’t. 

Consider it pure joy… Consider. I appreciate this word because it calls me to a different posture in difficulty. Consider is an active word and emotionally invested. This word doesn’t speak towards something that just happens on it’s own but an invitation to engage with the trial. Instead of “whatever” or “come what may,” I’m invited to feel, pause and contemplate in a way that transforms my posture in and perspective of this trial. 

He writes, consider your trials joy. What? Really, joy is the posture I’m supposed to have during the hardest times of my life? 

Joy is not based on positive thinking or fading happiness or some emotional reaction I’m trying to muster up because I’m a “good Christian.” Joy is not happiness because happiness is contingent on circumstance. Joy is an inner confidence in the goodness of God throughout the midst of such loss. Through Christ, joy becomes a supernatural reaction to the impossible parts of life. This doesn’t mean I’m not feeling the effects of the impossible. I feel it fully and I feel it for others when they are hurting and suffering. I mourn and weep and cry out. I shout in sadness and rage towards God knowing God’s capable of holding my pain. I question the why but I haven’t questioned God’s love in it—yet. Sometimes the silence on the other end of my “why” is the hardest part of every trial.

Lastly friends, a word about faith, because apparently faith is what’s brought about during this shit-storm of life. Faith is gritty-determined hope for what I can’t yet see. Sometimes when the losses in life surround me, all I can see is what isn’t instead of what is. All I can see is how much lack there is. I become hyper-focused on the trial, obsessing about it. It’s all I can talk about. But when I step back and consider God’s goodness that brings joy, I’m able to see past and through the trial instead of just seeing the trial. 

As a follower of Christ, my focus gets shifted away from the trial and onto Christ. And while this doesn’t change my circumstance, it certainly brings me new perspective in the midst of it all. With Christ, I find there’s another way of responding to trials in this life. I’m not stuck in a state of perpetual despair or fear. 

I want to respond to trials with joy. I want to fight fear with hope. I want to push back despair by looking to the mountains. I want to peel my gaze away from my own suffering and onto the wider world around me, knowing my beloved church family is with me.  I want to see through it as I’m going through it. Maybe it’s that child-like faith that can help me see what is instead of what isn’t and maybe I’ll find a little joy in this wilderness.

With (love),
Bethany