Happy and Sad at the Same Time
Last week was a dream week for Ray and me. At the top of the list of joys was Toby’s safe birth and Audra’s safe delivery. Clara celebrated her fourth birthday that very same day. We were at Clara’s party when we had our first Skype with Toby and John, so Mary Evelyn and her family, Bethany and her family, my mother, Ray, and I all got to meet Toby at the same time. My heart could hardly contain the joy of that moment.
In addition to time with our family, we had relaxing visits with friends last week. I also connected with several friends by email after sending them announcements of Toby’s birth. When one of my friends responded to my announcement about Toby, I asked her how things were going in her family. She wrote back with good news about her husband, children, and grandchildren, but with sad news about her mother and sister. After asking for prayers for them all, she closed with, “Sorry for the sad report when you have such a joyful report. I praise God for your new grand-baby!”
I wrote my friend back telling her not to worry about sending a sad report when we have a joyful one. Our exchange prompted this post today.
One of the reasons that Ray and I can appreciate the dream week we had last week is because it was so very different from many other weeks we have lived through — dare I say other weeks we have endured. Six months after we married, Ray’s dad called with the news that Ray’s mother had died, completely unexpectedly. Together we have stood in hospital rooms as we said goodbye to my father in 2003 and his in 2007. Exactly three years ago today, we again stood in a hospital room to say goodbye, this time to our grandson who was only sixteen months old. We had our own grief, but our hearts broke even more for our precious son and his wife.
I left my mother in intensive care five years ago to attend our daughter’s wedding shower. One month later our son and his wife lost their first baby half-way through the pregnancy (on my birthday) and our daughter got married two weeks later. One month after Avery went to be with Jesus, we learned the joyful news that one of our daughters was expecting her first child. One month after that Avery’s brother Henry was born.
The day of the wedding shower was a turning point for me. It was during that wedding shower that I first realized (at age 55) that I could rejoice and grieve at the same time. Little did I know that day how God would use it to prepare me for other days that were ahead.
The night before, I had stayed up late working on a book of family recipes to give to our daughter the next day at the shower. Suddenly the phone rang. It was someone from a hospital in Nashville, saying that my mother had had a heart attack and that she was about to go into surgery. Mother had realized what was happening and had called 911 herself.
Ray and I hurried to the hospital. By the next morning, Mother was stable and I was able to see her in intensive care. I asked my mother, who had been planning to go to the shower herself that day, if it was okay with her if I went. She told me that it was. It was at the shower that I realized that I could be completely upset about one thing and completely happy about something else at the same time. When the shower was over, I headed back to the hospital.
So, on this day that our family remembers our precious Avery, we have all learned that joy and grief can co-exist in the human heart. God knows it firsthand Himself. The terrible cross brought amazing grace to the world. Joy and grief can co-exist. It is just how life is and God understands that and helps us through it.
I am thankful that God gives us one another to share our sorrows and joys. I love the verse that tells us to weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice. I think it is one of the best ways we can show love for one another.
Just before the crucifixion, Jesus talked to His apostles about what was about to happen. He told them:
Therefore you too have grief now;
but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice,
and no one will take your joy away from you.
John 16:22
Great wisdom.
Dena, thank you so much for weeping and rejoicing with me and pointing me to the One from Whom all wisdom comes. I love you.
Thank you so much for posting about this topic. I have always had a hard time reconciling feelings of joy and sadness, which often do go hand in hand (I guess that’s just life!).
I love that God understands that it is a part of life and that He has experienced it for us.
I’m thankful for this post. I feel God is giving me the insight and ability to also celebrate life’s joys and acknowledge the pain without feeling like an emotional slave to circumstances. It’s quite healthy! We can be thankful to God for all He allows when we trust that He loves us without measure!
Very well said, Dawn. I am so thankful that He gives us others to weep and rejoice with us. We are all so needy.
So very true, Charlene. Joy and grief is so often mixed together in this fallen world of ours. It can certainly make us thankful for those “periods of grace” that come around from time to time. Ma Ingalls once said, “This earthly life is a battle…It always has been so, and it always will be. The sooner you make up your mind to that, the better off you are, and more thankful for your pleasures.”
Thank you for sharing Ma’s wisdom. It was a real blessing to me as we were rearing our children.
Rejoice together, cry together, walk together, trust together, hope together…
“In heavenly love abiding, no change my heart shall fear…”
Thank you for sharing these special words, Charlene.
We’ve been doing that for over twenty years now!
Charlene, I love you. I never really thought about grieving and rejoicing at the same time. Now, when I grieve, I will look for something to rejoice in, because I CAN, and God probably designed it that way to help us through the grief. What a Loving and Gracious God! May God bless you and continue to work through you and Ray with this wonderful adventure you are on. 🙂
Stacy, I love you, too. Thank you for these very kind words. I love your statement that God probably designed it that way to help us through the grief. I have not thought about it like that and it is very comforting. He is Loving and Gracious God.
This post reminds me of Ecclesiastes chapter 3. After I read your post, I was pondering and thought about you saying you were 55 when you realized you could have joy and sadness at the same time. Have you noticed we seem to understand life and living more the older we get? And appreciate it more? (I’m 43, I thought it would only be fair to divulge, since I know your age to let you know mine). There is so much wisdom in the Bible that we could not attain it even in 10 lifetimes but I wonder if some wisdom is just not attainable until we’ve lived our lives and actually lived THROUGH things. I know it’s only through Christ that we have any knowledge at all but I think it’s true…experience is the best teacher.
I remember thinking in some of the hardest times that I was learning lessons that I didn’t want to learn. Now I am thankful for the lessons though I would have rather have learned them a different way. I know that what you are saying is true. Even Jesus learned that way:
Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered. Hebrews 5:8
I am printing this for my sister who is learning first hand about joy and grief at the same time. She is planning her wedding while still grieving the loss of a dear little child who was a mutual friend to her and her boyfriend. They were both very involved in her life. For a while they couldn’t even think about a wedding while the grief was soo raw. They will be married in Aug. now and are very excited.
Oh, I am so sorry for your sister and her boyfriend. I hope the wedding and the marriage are wonderful.