Christmas Joy

I spent some time this week looking over all of the Christmas decorations that are scattered throughout my home. The word “joy” appears at least a dozen times. The holidays are characterized by joy. For the entire month of December, families are driving around to stare in awe at marvelous light displays, everyone’s kitchen smells like peppermint as preparations are make for an annual cookie exchange, wishlists are created or updated in anticipation of traditions of gift-giving, and playlists are curated so that the songs of the season are always ringing through the air.

But, it can be so difficult to participate in the joys of the Christmas after you have experienced the loss of someone dear to you.  It can seem as though every holiday tradition or festivity is a glaring reminder of the precious one who is no longer here with you.

How can you feel joy when your heart is breaking?
Where is the joy while you are staring at the limp stocking on the mantel or the empty chair at the table?
How many times have we sung the words, “Joy to the World” with our lips, while our hearts were far from believing it?

But, what if instead of searching for joy in our circumstances and possessions, or the fulfillment of our desires, we look for joy from its truest and purest source? 

Christ Himself, tells us that in obedience to His Word and abiding in His love we will find that His abounding joy remains in us.

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in His love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.”
-John 15:9-11

As I continue to abide in the One who sustains and upholds me, His abundant joy overflows within me. And I’ve come to realize that on those days when I don’t feel joy it’s because I haven’t really chosen it. I have been burying it beneath my own meager efforts to find happiness and completeness in the sorrow and the chaos. But really, isn’t choosing joy all about choosing Jesus?  Isn’t finding joy the result of seeing Jesus in and through every bit of life? For it is then that all of the joy that we so often strive for would be truly felt in the deepest parts of our souls.

Joy in knowing that I am covered by His blood and grace.
Joy in surrendering to God’s desires and purposes for my life.
Joy in experiencing His perfect presence, which was only made possible by my redemption through His Son.

So when my days are weighed down by hurt, disappointment, exhaustion, and sorrow, when the joys of the season seem illusive, I fix my eyes not on the storm but on Him who carries me through it, and remember, just as David said in the Psalms, that “weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning” (Psalm 30:5).

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Ashlee is the Editorial Coordinator for Hope Mommies and author of I AM (Hope Mommies, 2017) and Identity (Hope Mommies, 2018). She and her husband, Jesse, live in Milwaukee with their children—five on earth and two in heaven.

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