joy – Not Quite Ordinary

The Place of Joy

Posted on January 8, 2025 by Ann B. Hibbard

Do you have a happy place?

This question was mulling around in my mind one morning as I read a chapter in Longing for Joy by Alastair Stern. The first few chapters have had the potential to be a wee bit discouraging as the author explains that joy cannot be intentionally chosen, found, or created. It is instead rather elusive and seems somewhat haphazard.

What is the good of longing for it if it may or may not ever come to us?

And yet, oddly enough, the very nature of the discussion gives such hope. On that particular morning, I was reading chapter five, aptly entitled “Longing.” Woven throughout the chapter were descriptions of moments that seemed so full of joy and yet were also full of longing. Of an awareness that, no matter how amazing the moment, the joy was fleeting. Or incomplete. Or somehow lacking.

It all clicked in my heart and mind with an understanding, a greater appreciation for the moments and places of joy I’ve experienced throughout my life, and a realization that the longing — the incompletion even in those amazing moments — was all part of the amazing nature of joy. The reminder that there is still coming a time when our joy will be complete.

I’ve never longed more for the presence of God than in those places of incomplete joy, and it’s an amazing feeling.

In the early chapters of Longing for Joy, the author hints at the idea that, although we cannot choose joy on our own, we can cultivate a life that will welcome joy when it comes. That idea, combined with the awakened understanding of the longing that beautifully rests hand in hand with joy, made me realize something: my favorite spaces are the spaces where I can truly process joy. My happy places.

Oddly enough, they are the places where joy helps me process everything else, too.

I’m a nomad, so there aren’t many specific physical places where I feel at home. Home is life with Doug. Home is being able to continue to share life with my children, even as they transition into adulthood. But, there are still physical and geographic places that give me nourishment.

One of the earliest favorites place I can remember was a low, backless, stone bench on a hillside. The bench sat in the back yard of the house next to ours, one used by our mission group as a guest house or meeting place. Since it was typically unoccupied, it was easy for me to slip over there and enjoy the quiet. I could look out over the valley below us and up to the next hill where the ruins of an old crusader castle nestled at the top. That hill and the one next to it gave way to another valley in-between. Sometimes, when the air was clear, I could see more hills and valleys through the gap. In the haze of summer, I could barely see past those two hills. Still other times, fog rolled through the gap and across the valleys, looking like a cozy blanket.

It was my happy place growing up, and whenever I think of it I can’t help but smile. But, this morning I had an odd realization about my happy place: I wasn’t usually happy when I went there. I most often went when I was hurt or angry. When I just wanted to be alone or when I felt as if the weight of loneliness would suffocate me. When I was longing for life to slow down or aching for time to move more quickly. It was a place of tears. Of grieving. Of venting. Of longing and aching. Only very rarely did I go when I was happy and wanted to express joy. Usually I went because I longed for joy to find and rescue me.

And yet, although I know I had places of joy before then, that is the place my mind always returns to when I think of a foundational place of joy.

How can that be possible?

It took that chapter on longing to help me realize that joy often comes when we allow ourselves to process all of our emotions. There was nothing awesome about that stone bench. It was, in fact, quite uncomfortable to sit there for any length of time. And though I did love the view, it wasn’t perfect or extraordinary. Even so, that bench and the view it overlooked represented the space where I went to let everything go. Where I truly stopped to analyze my thoughts and feelings. Where I was most likely to be honest with myself.

It was the place where joy most easily found me during my growing up years, either helping me process my crazy thoughts and emotions or embracing me after I released them.

I haven’t been back to that spot in nearly 30 years, but I’ve found others like it. And now I realize what it is that makes those spaces special. Now I see that they are spaces that give me permission to stop and process. To take all of my thoughts and feelings, both good and bad, and let them soar in openness and honesty. To really see myself and determine what’s good and what’s not so good. To let myself feel. To let myself be. And to make myself hear what the Spirit is speaking into my emotions and circumstances.

In the middle of it all, I get a glimpse of what joy looks like. I see what I’m truly longing for. I understand what it is I’m seeking. And I can equip myself to go back and live a life that cultivates space for joy and gives permission to the longing for it.

There’s no magic formula for a place that produces joy. But there is a space for me that makes joy more tangible, even when all I take in with me is sorrow and ache. It’s a beautiful place to be.

Note: The image is a painting my mom did for me, showing the crusader castle mentioned above. It hangs above the mantle in our living room, reminding me of my favorite view from my growing up years, seen both from that stone bench and from my bedroom window.

Advent Week 1: Cultivating Joy

Posted on December 2, 2024 by Ann B. Hibbard

At our church this year, we greeted the first Sunday in Advent with the theme of joy.

Joy isn’t typically where the Advent discussions, sermons, or candle lighting begin. It’s typically a theme that comes later in the season. But, as my husband prayed about it, that’s where he felt led to start. Not only was it a fitting starting point, it also gave us the perfect opportunity to make “Joy to the World” our first congregational worship song of the season. What could be better?

The whole sermon was good, but one point really hit home for me: joy must be cultivated, and that cultivation takes time. I’ve been pondering this thought ever since hearing it and scrawling it in my sermon notes.

The concept of cultivated joy shouldn’t come as a surprise to any of us. While happiness and joy do manifest in similar ways, happiness can come in an instant — and disappear just as quickly. Joy, while its seeds are often most easily planted during times of happiness, takes more effort. More intentionality. More deliberate and focused attention.

In fact, I think, for this very reason, joy might be a bit harder to truly cultivate in times of exuberant happiness. It’s hard during times of grief, as well. I’d much rather go into a season of grief with my joy deeply rooted than to try to grow it during that time. But in seasons of great happiness, I often neglect to invest in joy. It’s so easy to just be happy.

Of course, in the in-between times, we often just work through the motions and don’t pay much attention to the cultivation needs then, either. Life is fine. We have happy moments and sad moments. We try to grow spiritually and move through the things God sets before us. But, just as in moments of happiness and seasons of grief, we don’t work to cultivate joy.

At least, I frequently don’t.

Here’s the thing I’ve learned about myself. When I’m not actively cultivating joy, I still cultivate other things. Things that don’t take as much effort. That feel like less work. That aren’t as exhausting.

But the payoff is atrocious. Because those things that are easier to cultivate are devastating for my soul when they are not paired with joy.

Don’t get me wrong, they are not bad in and of themselves. There are negative things that are easy to cultivate as well, but those are obvious. We should know not to cultivate selfishness and bitterness and anger and hate.

But there are other things that seem good and healthy. It’s not bad to cultivate a sense of self and the care that goes along with it. It’s not bad to cultivate the empathy that is such an inherent part of my personality. (I know that can be harder for those who do not have an empathetic personality, so this is definitely very personal to me.) Cultivating skills and habits and hobbies are all very good.

But, when I cultivate those things without incorporating joy — or any of the fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, per Galatians 5:22-23) — they can all foster the selfishness that I do not ever want to intentionally cultivate.

Yes, devastating is definitely an appropriate word.

I’m far too guilty of that, though. And that truth is what hit me yesterday during the sermon. Over the past few years, I have attempted to heal from hurts, grow in Christ, and notice the needs of others. I’ve sought to regain a sense of peace and calm even in seasons of loneliness and aches.

But somewhere along the way, I think I stopped actively cultivating joy. I tried to ride on what already existed without nourishing it so it would continue. Eventually, it began to dry up. The sad thing is that I didn’t really notice. I was so caught up in those moments where there was a lack of happiness that I didn’t pay attention to the fact that my joy — the joy of belonging to my precious Lord and Savior and being held in His miraculous arms and guided by His perfect wisdom and protected by His amazing and vast greatness — was fading from lack of attention.

As a result, my attempts to find healing and growth and empathy have fallen flat and left me disillusioned, the bearer of a perpetual ache over the pain in this world.

Joy changes that. It doesn’t remove the hurt. But it reminds us who ultimate holds the hurt. It works the Lord’s healing in a way that nothing else can. It allows us to see lessons of growth in places we never would have thought to look.

I must get back to cultivating joy.

Where do I start? Well, my wise husband mentioned three things in his sermon (which you can watch here, if you so desire): embrace and share forgiveness, be a conduit for the love of Christ, and invest the time cultivation requires rather than expecting it to just happen.

Obviously, that’s not an exhaustive list because the cultivation of joy is an ongoing, lifelong process. But it’s a powerful starting point. I’m ready to get back to cultivating.

Thoughts from Life

Rain

Posted on October 14, 2024 by Ann B. Hibbard

As I look out the window this morning, I see bright sunshine. I do enjoy sunshine. I need it after a long stretch of clouds and gloom. But, right now we have a bit too much of it. We’ve gone long stretches with all sunshine and no rain, and there is no rain in the forecast. In fact, they are saying we may go the whole month without a drop.

If I’m honest with myself, I have to admit that I’m grieving the lack of rain.

You see, I love rain. Not necessarily the dark and gloom, especially if it’s just cloudy with no rain falling. On those days, I’d rather have sunshine. But as long as it’s dripping and wet, the gloom doesn’t bother me. I’ll turn on those extra lights while I wait for the sun, but the truth is that it will take me long time to get tired of the rain. And I’m almost always sad to see it go, even when we’ve had too much and I know we don’t need more.

My love for rain probably comes from spending many of my growing up years in a desert climate. As the last of the winter rains dwindled away and the spring sun came out, the hills around us would erupt in a beautiful array of colors as poppies, irises (especially the dark purple, almost black Gilead iris that only grows in those hills), and other wildflowers overtook the landscape. But, they never lasted long. Within a couple of weeks, the flowers were dead and any grass that had sprouted up was already starting to turn brown.

As much as I loved wildflower season, I also knew what it meant. We’d have at least eight, and possibly as many as ten, months of complete dryness. Not a single drop of rain. Not even a hint of a cloud. The sky would go from brilliant blue to dusty brown. As summer progressed and the land completely dried out, massive dust storms would roll over us as thick as winter fog.

When the rains finally returned sometime between October and December, the first shower would often look more like mud than rain as it washed the dust out of the air. We didn’t care, though. We’d be out in it, dancing and laughing as we welcomed each drop. Those first rains meant cleansing. They meant that we could breathe. They meant a few months of relief from the heat. They meant blue skies and green hills, at least for a couple of weeks before cold set in and chased the grass away again.

And to this day, I welcome rain with relish.

That’s not what everyone feels when they look out the window and see rain. Some people see the gloom and desperately need the sun, even knowing that the rain is necessary. Some people are hounded with memories, not of dancing in the welcome rain, but of the destruction that so often comes with the rain. Havoc wreaked by storm lines or hurricanes, as we’ve seen horrific evidence of lately. Crops destroyed by too much rain or by hard rain at hard times. Dangerous flash floods from a sudden rainburst.

Or, perhaps the memories are less general and more personal. Ruined plans. Getting in trouble because of not having an outlet to release energy when trapped indoors by the weather.

The thing that brings me such joy can also bring incredible pain. I’ve been there. I’ve seen it. I’ve lived with the consequences. And I so very much understand that those experiences cause some people to dread even the thought of rain, no matter how much it’s needed.

Joy and grief are like that. They intermingle but they also fight for top billing in our hearts. Sometimes the joy wins, while other times the grief is overwhelming. And in the process, we feel our own feelings and wonder how someone else can possibly feel differently. How can someone else hate rain so much when it’s so life-giving? How can someone else long for rain when the sun shining from a cloudless sky is so nourishing?

More confusing of all is when all of those feelings clash in our own hearts. When we desperately need the cleansing rain but just as desperately need the light of the sun. When our circumstances are washing out the dirt and yuck in our hearts but what we achingly hunger for is to just be clean and light and happy again.

We live in a fallen world that needs both clouds and sun, rain and dry. Neither is perfect, but both are good. Scripture tells us that nature itself groans as it waits for the perfection to be restored. For it all to be good without any mix of bad. But we’re not there yet. So, we have to learn what it means to live with it all.

We have to learn to embrace what we love while ministering to those who ache in those same moments. We have to learn to both laugh and cry with one another without sacrificing our own joy and tears.

There’s no easy answer to it. Today as I stare out at the sunshine, I admit that my soul is feeling parched along with the dry ground. But, even while I pray for an unexpected soaking rain, both for the ground and for my soul, I’m rejoicing over the light shining on both. That intermingling of joy and grief. That knowledge that God is growing me with His light, even when I feel parched. The truth that, when the rains come and there are others who feel like they are drowning, I can empathize with and pray for them even as they can for my parched soul today.

And one day, we’ll rejoice in the perfection, all receiving nourishing together. That’s the day I long for.