I think about joy in the middle of the night sometimes.
I remember when I was memorizing the book of James a couple of years ago, and I got really hung up on that verse in the first chapter, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds” because it seems like we’re supposed to count trials as joyous things when we first meet them. I feel like I can find joy later, but not right there when sorrow and I first shake hands. It’s after sorrow or pain camp out in my house for a couple years and then leave that I can see the bits of work they did around my house, fixing up this corner, sanding down that rough edge. When they leave, I feel thankful for the work they did, but I’m kind of glad they’re gone. Really glad, actually.
So when it’s hours from dawn and I’m up pacing the floor and trying not to cry for the sharp edge of pain wedged between my vertebrae, I think about how impossible it seems to call anything like this “joy.” I pray, I plead, I beg. I ask the Lord how in the world any of this can be good. I pray all night. All the dark night long. That’s what it means to live in a frame that hides its disease from the naked eye. But look deeper and it screams, “I am fragile.” Aren’t we all?
A friend asked me the other day, “How do you feel joy in the middle of suffering?” Honestly, I was stumped. Because when pain sears up and down my spine at 1:30 a.m., there is not a lot of joy surging in my heart. No, it’s more like prayer and breathing and pleading and hoping against hope the Lord will keep His promise to sustain me somehow. In the middle of the night, there are tears. A lot of breath-holding. A lot of prayers for faithfulness to carry me through to morning. It doesn’t look like joy as I have always believed joy to be. I think about James’s words, and I wonder if I’ve gotten it wrong all this time. In the night, I’m not sure what joy is. The sun comes up as it always does, and mostly I am awake to see it. Just like that, I breathe with relief.
I made it.
He kept me.
Months of these nights pass, even years. Yes, sometimes it’s years. And while there isn’t a lot of happiness in the middle of the night, there is intimacy with Christ I wouldn’t trade for the most pain-free existence anyone could promise me on this earth. Because all that praying and pleading and weeping keeps me so near the One who loves me the most. I pray so much. And that praying is working something out of my soul, wringing it out. It hurts. And it is good, somehow. My heart is brimming with something that’s not exactly happiness but not exactly sorrow. I think it is joy. I think it is the thing that James was talking about. Because I can hold hands with pain, feel the arms of suffering grip my shoulders, and I can still be absolutely certain beyond doubt that the Lord will carry me. He will be close to me. He will do something good with all of this even if I never see the fruit of it in this life. Weeping may last for a night—sometimes years of nights—but joy comes in the morning with the sunrise when you see that the Lord hasn’t yet failed to carry you.
The Bible says things about joy that make sense in the night. My pastors have just finished preaching the book of Nehemiah, and I meditated for a while on the passage from chapter 8 where Ezra comforts the grieving people of God with this truth: “The joy of the Lord is your strength.” They had heard the law proclaimed and mourned for how far they’d lived from it. Ezra encouraged them to be strengthened with the Lord’s joy. Additionally, we know from Galatians that joy is a fruit of the Spirit; it’s something He gives us (see Gal. 5:22-23). Peter talks about joy in our future inheritance even if we are currently grieved by trials (see 1 Peter 1:1-10). Joy is often equated with praise and thankfulness. It’s something we’re called to always (see Phil. 4:4). It’s also often coupled with suffering (see Rom. 5:3-5, James 1:2-4, 1 Peter 4:12-14). And that seems backwards, doesn’t it? Joy and suffering are two sides of the same coin. They are neighbors. Yet, suffering produces an undercurrent of faith that cannot be eclipsed by pain, and when I realize the Lord has sustained through yet another sleepless night, joy makes a lot of sense in that context. Joy and suffering. Strange friends.
“How do you feel joy in the middle of suffering?” I’m still working it out. As much as I want to tell people that I have happy emotions in the night, that’s just not always the case. But I do have certainty that the Lord will not fail me. That He keeps me. And with time, that certainty unfurls in my heart with gladness of the soul. Joy. She stretches out and takes up residence with her neighbor—suffering.
We don’t always feel the emotions in suffering that we typically equate with joy. But maybe we’ve gotten joy a little wrong. Maybe it’s not glib, buoyant feelings but rather certainty of God’s faithfulness. After all, we live by faith and not by feeling. Less a gleeful happiness that ignores hard things, I believe joy is glad certainty that the Lord carries you through hard things. We may weep in the night, but joy comes with the morning when we can see that He has kept us. He will keep us still. Maybe joy doesn’t always clap her hands with glee. Maybe she trembles with relief and says, “I made it. He kept me.”
Weeping may last for a night—sometimes years of nights—but joy comes in the morning with the sunrise when you see that the Lord hasn’t yet failed to carry you. Share on X
Maybe joy doesn’t always clap her hands with glee. Maybe she trembles with relief and says, “I made it. He kept me.” Share on X
Photo by pure julia on Unsplash
Glenna Marshall is married to her pastor, William, and lives in rural Southeast Missouri where she tries and fails to keep up with her two energetic sons. She is the author of The Promise is His Presence (P&R) and Everyday Faithfulness (Crossway), and Memorizing Scripture (Moody). Connect with her on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.