consider it pure joy

"THIS TRIUNE BEING AND LIFE...IS RADIANT, AND WHAT IT RADIATES IS JOY"

-KARL BARTH

What a bleepin' year, am I right?

I’m caught up between two places on this paint plastered beauty.

A place with no words at all, and yet as I showed up to the canvas with a brush in hand (which was eventually cast aside because I always resort to mah hands),

Holy Spirit continued to reveal more and more to me.

It all started in the fetal position on the floor.

With a broken heart and tear stained cheeks I desperately wanted (many) something(s). At the core, those somethings were diluted down to connection & intimacy. 

Something 2020 simply can’t offer me.

Out of this depressive, dark state, I continued to make choices. Certainly choices of some unhealthy coping, yet also heavy handed sprinkles of other choices such as grabbing for my Bible here and there even when I (mostly) didn’t want to. Pulling up a church podcast from time to time. Listening to worship music instead. I kept lethargically making some good choices for myself because though my spirit was exhausted, a bit angry and very sad; these good choices were what truest self knew to be healthy.

One day in the middle of a healthy choice and the mundane preparations for the day I glanced at my pale, sad eyes in the mirror with despondence. A few moments later I heard the words as the speaker of a random church sermon on shuffle played through:

“Consider it pure joy...”

And because I know the scriptures or at least this one in particular, I knew that the premise and what follows this particular verse seem to be quite contrary to “joyous.”

"Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. James 1:2-5

I normally paint with blue hues and glimmers of gold but this time I began to see swirls of bright pinks, deep purples and pastels of various shades (all of which I’ve NEVER painted with before on canvas, and in my human logic, don't make the most sense with this verse.)

Inspiration struck.

Yes, even in this lowly and depressed mental state.

I picked up a blank canvas and for the first time in 2020, started to paint.

And as people would ask “what’s your inspiration?”

I would answer with candor, “I’m not really sure yet, I guess depression.”

But now I know that is not true.

As I continued painting the Lord revealed to me that I only see a small portion of what’s happening in the universe. If it were up to me I would have stuck with my most natural colour palette, painting with dark blues and blacks and maybe a splash of forest green if I’m really feeling up to it. It would have represented mostly misery, but that’s not what He sees in my midst. He sees a rainbow of opportunity.

He exposed the swirly sea I’ve become to loathe and told me it will become a storm I give a name to in the future, due to its grand importance in this adventure of a life.

He explained to me that inspiration can, in fact, strike at a time of grief and broken hopes. Because inspiration isn’t up to me to muster up.

He made it clear to me that my very own hands can prophesy over my own dead and dry bones. That even I can be the vessel He chooses to help lift me out of my own pit, if I decide to take the necessary steps forward.

..Mini story within the story..

I once listened to a wise man take me on a journey of hope through the scriptures (thank you Andrew Shearman!) He explained hope to me from a biblical perspective, beginning with Proverbs.

Hope deferred makes the heart sick,

but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.

Proverbs 13:12

I remember thinking to myself after reading this first verse "if hope is continually deferred, how do we cross over into joy even if we are still "longing?'"

But we have to keep reading...

A happy heart makes the face cheerful,

but sick heart crushes the spirit.

Proverbs 15:13

and then..

A cheerful heart is good medicine,

but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.

Proverbs 17:22

Then we fast forward to Ezekiel to learn about dry bones...

"The hand of the Lord was on me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry.

He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?”

I said, “Sovereign Lord, you alone know.”

Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord!  This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life.

Then you will know that I am the Lord.’”

So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone.  I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them... " Ezekiel 37:1-8

I see the progression of hope to joy in these scriptures and the key is obedience and prophesy.

The key is "so I prophesied as I was commanded..."

The key is making good choices even when we don't feel like it...

Reading scripture because that's how our minds are transformed...

Picking up the paintbrush, even if it's been an entire year and we don't "feel" inspired...

Though this season feels like a turbulent storm,

The God of Hope comes in my night to light up the room with colour.

The God of Shalom comes to destroy any authority attached to chaos.

The God of Love responds to me in my weary cries, by choosing to remain near despite my exhausted resistance.

And the God of Joy comes in my wilderness to cup my face and grab my hands to grant me a perspective that ushers me into a posture of rejoicing with anticipation and grants me the strength to keep hoping when I feel like I have nothing left in me.

God comes to me in my weary places and breathes new life into these dead and dry bones.

For there is nothing too dead that God cannot bring back to life.

As my painting continued to reveal herself to me,

so did joy.

Not the happy kind,

the sober kind.

The kind you have to sometimes grit your teeth through and work for because though circumstances appear to have gone to shit, the Lord continues to say

“Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy!” Psalm 126:5

So, if it's been a hard year for you, too,

if you find yourself weeping to sleep at night

in the fetal position on the floor with very little hope left, if any,

I encourage you to read these scriptures and ask the Lord for divine revelation and a mustard seed of faith to move forward in obedience as He breathes new life over your dry bones, too.