Joy to the World

Joy to the world! The Lord is come

Let earth receive her king!

Let every heart prepare him room

and heaven and nature sing.

"Joy to the World," by Isaac Watts, 1719

This Christmas I seemed bombarded with elements of the season that are related to joy. The third week of Advent in the Christian calendar focuses on joy. Many Christmas songs talk about joy. The service we attended Christmas Eve was entitled, "Rediscover the Joy of Christmas."

I found myself returning again and again to the questions, "Is there any joy this Christmas? What does joy mean in the midst of loss, sorrow, and heartbreak? Why does joy show up so much this time of year?"

For weeks I have struggled with how to answer these questions. My anticipated joys for the season died with Isabella. Less than a week before Isabella was born, my middle sister and I sat in our parents' kitchen and talked about Christmas. Both of us were in our third trimester of pregnancy and trying to find images that would help make the last hurdles more manageable. We dreamt about our daughters' first Christmas when we would all gather together and celebrate. Isabella would be six months old and my niece would be four months. We pictured Isabella learning to sit up, smiling, and cooing. Although only two months would separate our daughters, the gap would be apparent in development at that age. Her daughter would be engaging with the world, also smiling, and perhaps learning to roll over. 

We never could have known how different those images would be from the actual experience of December 2017.

Instead of celebrating the holidays in town as initially planned, we flew to the Midwest to be with my middle sister, her husband and daughter, my youngest sister, and my parents. Taking off from the airport was heart wrenching. I was leaving my daughter, all alone, without her parents, at Christmas. What kind of mother leaves behind a child on their first holiday? Me. Along with all other mothers who have buried a child and travel elsewhere for holidays or have moved since burying their child/ren.

Where is joy when my daughter is buried in the cold ground? I thought this Christmas would have the joy of seeing her and her cousin, of watching her looking at lights on the tree, of Isabella interacting with her grandparents, of raspberries blown on tummies, of cousins wearing matching “First Christmas” outfits. We had none of those experiences. How can I find joy? I knew I would not find it through interacting with my daughter. What joy could I hold onto?

Over the course of December, I kept going back to the opening verses of Isaac Watts’ song, “Joy to the world, the Lord has come.” Intellectually I know this joy is not dependent upon circumstances. It is for the world, including bereaved parents, widows, widowers, orphans, those hungry, the forgotten. Yet I struggled to feel joy.

Is joy an emotion? It is according to the dictionary. There are also derivatives of the emotion joy. One can rejoice, feel joyful, overjoyed, joyous. John Piper’s definition states, “Christian joy is a good feeling in the soul, produced by the Holy Spirit, as he causes us to see the beauty of Christ in the word and in the world.” He goes on to say that joy is an emotion, but we do not have immediate control over what emotions we feel. (True.) I cannot decide to feel joyful and suddenly my emotions align with that desire.

When I look back at this Christmas I will primarily remember the sorrow and emptiness of my arms. There was happiness and laughter, and I think I can say that I did find joy in the season. Ultimately, that joy came from seeing “the beauty of Christ in the word and in the world.” We continue to see a tremendous outpouring of love and support from friends and family, people who to walk beside us in our grief. Our eyes are more opened to the numerous ways people suffer and the variety of loss all around us, helping us to feel less lonesome in the pain. We know Isabella's death is not the end of our story and that we will be able to walk beside others in their despair. There can be the experience of joy simultaneous with the experience of sorrow, and that intermingling is what makes it so confounding to define.

On the deepest level, my soul rejoices over the fact that I will see my daughter again. She will not return to me, but I will go to her. I don’t know when, but because of Jesus, whose birth Christmas celebrates, I will get to know her.

I rejoice in the fact that, although death is still present in this world, Jesus has overcome death through his resurrection. Paul discusses implications of the resurrection in 1 Corinthians and writes,

…And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.
But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.

The line, "If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied," stands out to me. Christ came so that we would have life to the fullest. And not just here. If life on earth was all there was, Isabella's death would be the end of her story. Death would be the end. Joy would be impossible following the death of our only child. 

When Jesus' birth is told to the shepherds, the angel says, "Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people." This was one of the verses highlighted at the Christmas Eve service. Good news of great joy. I tried to hold onto it, and my arms felt empty. My sister, her husband, and their baby were sitting in the crying room. Looking around the sanctuary (which sat 4,500 people and was completely full) during the service, I saw dozens of babies.The songs we sang highlighted Mary holding her son, in her arms. My tears flowed freely during that service. And I wondered how many other people sitting around me had also lost children, whether through miscarriage, infant death, school age children, or adults. Hundreds, since pregnancy loss and infant death affects 1 in 4. How many of us were trying to find joy and hope in a season that is supposed to be filled with peace, love, warmth, and family?

The joy I held onto was primarily Christ. Throughout the season I also felt gladness and the warmth of time spent with family - laughing, crying, telling stories, eating delicious food. The comfort of being held by my husband every night, of feeling his hand holding mine throughout the day in laughter and tears. Remembering the abundance we have been given in material goods and praying that God would use it for his glory. Relishing the taste of exquisite homemade Chinese food, perfectly cooked seafood, a delectable omelet. The kaleidoscope of joy, pain, love, and sorrow, all interacting to make a design I had never known before.

And we ached. We all ached for the part of our family that was missing, even in a season of joy.

Image: https://donnasfamilylife.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/joy-to-the-world.jpg