Wrangler Dani

It seems to me that we are very bad at both grief and joy. I don’t know if this is an American thing, or a Christian culture thing, or a modern too-cool-to-care thing, but I feel it in my life. When we moved to Oregon and I started to realize that adopting a child was not just a vague longing but a desperate, quaking fire within me, I got good at grief. I’d been longing for motherhood for a while, but suddenly I had to grieve the process in a new way, admit the discomfort and pain I felt and even let it out into the world sometimes. Grieving should be public, in the way that mourners of old used to dress in black for months, showing their community an outward view of inward pain. But nowadays we mask it, pretending it’s gone after the funeral is over or morning comes. We grieve quietly, privately; we “put on a brave face”.

I couldn’t do that, when I realized that our adoption expedition was really happening. I grieved every child who we didn’t get to parent. I grieved every birth mom and dad in pain and uncertainty. I grieved for my own longings. Often this came out in public displays of embarrassing emotion, but as much as I hated my weepiness then, now I’m glad for it. The careful recording of my emotion on this blog and elsewhere helps me to remember that God indeed did answer a quite desperate prayer, and that grief – strong and powerful though it was – was not bigger than the goodness of God.

Now, we’re in a season of joy – and I admit that I am very bad at this, too. I cried during the Mother’s Day service at church because I felt empathy for all the women there feeling as I used to feel. I felt for the birth moms and foster moms who know the pain of loss; women longing to be moms and moms who’ve lost a child.

I’ve been looking forward to Mother’s Day since long before Addy was born. Longing to feel like a mom has taken up much of my thoughts for years, and I dreamed of the satisfaction of that first Mother’s Day. So why did I cry? Why did I find myself chasing joy instead of letting it float over me – why was joy hard to accept and hold on to, on a day that should have been filled with it?

I think that as bad as we are at grief, we can learn to be good at it. We all know someone who’s a little TOO good at grief – life becomes a minefield of woe for such a person and a simple cup of coffee is a tumbler of bitter tears. Even though Jesus is described as a “man of sorrows; acquainted with grief” I don’t think he melted into his friends like a needy child over every slight or difficulty. I think he probably laughed a lot. He was probably much more joyful than we give him credit for, with our long-faced medieval paintings and sobbing crucifixes. After all, he was a boy once, and boys are impish and fun and infinitely joyful!

So, once we’re good at grief, we have to re-learn how to be good at joy. Honestly, I think joy is harder. It can be seen as flighty or foolish, when it’s really the deepest faith of all. Joy is humor, life, fun, sunshine. Joy makes waiting rooms bearable and long nights pleasant. Joy and celebration make us grateful, hopeful, happy people.

It’s essential to have joy and embrace celebration, especially when we’ve experienced grief, and maybe even gotten a little too good at it. Because joy reminds us that life is for the living, that prayers get answered, that the sun always rises. Think about it – God made taste buds and chunky baby thighs and laughter and the smell of summer rain and the feeling of holding hands. He made sunsets and lavender and horses and puppies. These things are all joyful gifts, worthy to be celebrated with a bubbly drink and a boisterous toast. I want to get better at joy, starting today. I’m going to chuckle with my daughter and play fetch with my dog and plant my garden. Today is a day for joy.

“This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” Psalm 118:24