Joy

The thorns in our flesh can be an encouragement to our faith. They help us to live in a state of perpetual hope, as we live also in dependence, knowing afresh the goodness of God every day. But that doesn't mean they are without their consequences. 

For the person of faith, the idea that a persistent discomfort could dissuade us from believing in God is laughable. We just double down on what we know - that God is good - and we dive deeper into prayer and into thankfulness and into trust and hope and faith and love. This sustains us. This helps to get us through. 

But the thorn still has a few tricks up its sleeve. Even if it can't shake our faith, that pesky thorn so very often steals our joy. 

That is its true devastation. 

I currently have a thorn in the flesh. I've been wrestling with it for a few years at this point, and God has not seen fit to heal me of it so far. I have been living the story that I'm telling you, the same story that Paul tells you - that story that draws deeper into prayer, dwells in hope, keeps pushing against the mountain and trying to move it by the spoonful. 

But I also have to admit that one of the greatest challenges of this thorn is that it's taken something that I used to love, something that I found great joy in, something that deeply connected me to something of God in the depths of my soul, and it has made it nearly impossible for me. When I attempt to do the thing that I can no longer do because my spirit is still willing, but my flesh is thorny, I no longer feel the joy that I felt for so many years while doing it. 

It's no longer freeing. It's no longer fun. It's no longer good. It's absolute drudgery and a big ball of nerves and wondering when or if I will ever be unbounded by these chains so that joy can fill me up like a balloon again. 

That...is the hardest part for me. 

If God never heals me, I will still believe in Him. If God never heals me, I will still trust in Him. If God never heals me, I will still hope in Him. If God never heals me, I will not doubt His goodness. If God never heals me, I will not doubt that He loves me. I will double-down and get the biggest spoon I can find, and if my spoon breaks, I will find a stick, and if my stick breaks, I will dig with my fingers, and if my fingers start to bleed, I will keep digging anyway. Whatever. Put a mountain in front of me and watch me start moving it, in whatever little ways that I can. 

My faith is not at stake here. I know the goodness and the grace and the love of God too deeply in my bones to let a little discouragement dissuade me. 

But my joy.... 

It takes everything I've got to hold onto my joy.

But I'm trying to do that, too. Because this world took my joy from me once, and it took everything I had - everything God and I had together - to get it back. 

And I shall truly be damned - in a double sense of the word - to lose it again.