The Deeper Joy In Truth-Filled Sadness

Joy can be an upside-down quality of virtue that we experience even from within the emptiest of situations, because of the truth; to know reality is not passing us by. We are living it. By living the truth of reality—including its sadness—we know all too well there is a depth to life that may only be discerned when we have approached life with such boldness, come what may.

When we learn that joy is ever present and constantly available we are forced to review our definition of it.

We find joy when we are mature in the context of the truth in reality.

We find joy in the irrelevant moment, in the mystery, and well beyond our sense; simply by sitting in it; in the depths of reality—of existence that cannot be changed, influenced, nor condemned.

By entering boredom or agony or concern we watch for the white space in our minds—that place where the true and accessible us lives and belongs. That place is real, but somehow we must break past our initial fear to comfort ourselves to attain it.

Maybe only the truth-filled moments are real; perhaps it’s all the ‘preservatives added’ and bulk processed moments stripped away. Possibly, we can take the opportunity to be the church more when we are broken down and worshipping in truth.

Sitting in the pit of reality, with no pretension about us, with truth all about and none of it denied, God is real and God speaks; audibly through the ventricles of our felt experience—not in words, but through imagery, mysterious and captivating. This is powerful and nothing can touch it.

This is one of the wonderful wonders of the Gospel.

Nothing can defeat us if we have joy in sadness; the ability to access reality in truth and know God is there despite pain. This joy is not happiness, but it is the contentedness to move beyond the otherwise scaling resentment that kills our hope.

Such a thing as beautiful as this is to be beheld; it captivates us because it moves us and has us blossoming in growth from within.

God is good in that he offers us reality; the truth-filled experience, vast and gaping, with the sheer fullness of his prevailing Presence. When we imagine God there with us, no matter the emotion, we imagine his love shining through as empathy, as care, as grace, and we are moved to hope, and hope transforms us in peace.

© 2013 S. J. Wickham.