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My church small group is studying a DVD series and book called, “The Life You’ve Always Wanted.” It’s technically about spiritual disciplines, but it really is about the life you’ve always wanted ;).
Last night we discussed one spiritual “discipline” somehow I’ve never noticed before. It’s the discipline of celebration, which the author describes as joyfulness.
The author tells a great story of his daughter getting out of the bathtub, running around in circles, laughing, and joyfully singing “Dee dah day! Dee day day!” Their family called it the Dee day day dance, and she did it whenever she could not contain her joy. He wanted to dry her off, so he told her, “Hurry.” She only ran faster, singing faster, and giggling louder. He insisted, “Come here so I can dry you off, hurry!” She stopped and slowly asked, “Why?” He suddenly realized how driven he was by “hurry.” He had nowhere to go, no deadlines or meetings looming, but still he was hurrying. He was disappointed in himself. So instead, he paused, and danced the “Dee day day” dance with his daughter.
He used this story to illustrate how our busy, hurried lives are one of the primary issues preventing us from experiencing celebration and joyfulness. We are too rushed to notice the gorgeous sunset, and certainly too rushed to pull over, park on the side of the road, and just enjoy. We rush right by opportunities for joy all the time.
Despite my namesake, I tend to have a pessimistic outlook, and joy does not come naturally to me.
When I was an infant, my dad would spend hours in all sorts of antics trying to get me to crack a smile. When I was eight, our pastor’s wife told my mom I would marry someone joyful – someone who made me laugh. She was so right!
At our small group discussion, a friend mentioned that gratefulness is a huge step toward for joy. She has visited countries where people have next to nothing. She comes back incredibly thankful to sleep in a bed elevated off the floor with no bugs crawling on her at night. Grateful not to have to wash clothes by hand. Grateful to own a toothbrush. Grateful that her child will not be murdered at the altar of a twisted religious ceremony. Thankfulness straightens out our perspective. This can turn into joyfulness!
I guess I never thought of joy, or celebration, as God’s commandment before. It is a paradigm shift for me. For spiritual disciplines, I could list prayer, fasting, solitude, and service, but I could never have told you celebration was in that list.
Part of my struggle with joyfulness is I get a lot of pleasure from anticipation. The days, weeks, or even months leading up to an event I am particularly looking forward to, are full of joy. The actual event is lovely, but my emotional response is greater in the days of anticipation than in the moment of occurrence.
When I have something wonderful I’m anticipating, my overall emotional state is more joyful. The bigger the event, the more cheerful in advance I will be. In the last few years of life, the future has looked very dark to me. The only thing I could anticipate was more hardship and disappointment. More deferring of things I’ve hoped for since I was a little girl. I think that is why a lot of my joy has been sapped.
This year, I finally feel the future is looking up. I know I have several significant things to look forward to, and it’s already shifting my overall demeanor. Difficult things that have occurred in the last two weeks have been easier for me to manage emotionally, because I am already in a state of joyful anticipation.
So for me, it’s hope that brings the most joy.
In an old childhood photo, my sisters and I are playing with dolls. A doll is pictured named Baby Hope. She belonged to me, but was named after my sister Tabitha, whose middle name is Hope. When you flipped the doll upside down, a mechanical device in her belly made a crying sound. I didn’t have her long before she was left somewhere by mistake, and never seen again.
My grandmother "Tita" playing dolls with me. I am on the right of the image. Tita is holding Baby Hope in the bonnet and blue dress. My sister Tabitha is on the left, holding Baby Ribbit. Baby Ribbit was actually Baby Elizabeth (my middle name), but when Tabitha grew up, it sounded like she was saying "Baby Wibbit" when she was trying to say "Baby Elizabeth." The name stuck.
LEFT: me in the kitchen RIGHT: Tabitha and Baby Elizabeth "Wibbit"
This Christmas, our family was sitting around talking. Tabitha walked over to me carrying a doll. Silently, she flipped the doll upside down, then back upright, and the doll made a distinct crying sound. After a pause, Tabitha asked gently, “Does this doll look familiar?”
Digging deep into my memory, I said, “Well, she looks kind of like Baby Ribbit,” (who became Tabitha’s favorite doll as a child. Which she still has. Minus some fingers, eyelashes, an arm and a leg).
Gently again, Tabitha asked, “Do you remember Baby Hope?” It started coming back to me. I had the doll such a short time I remember it more from these photos than from playing with her (also due to my poor memory).
Then Tabitha told me the story. She was thrift store shopping, looking for a sturdy, vintage doll in good condition for her daughter, Piper. This was Piper’s first Christmas, and at five months old, she is able to hold, suck, and enjoy toys. Old enough to get her first doll.
Me and Piper
In the back of a thrift store, where the assorted who-knows-what-junk is piled on dusty shelves, poking from the bottom of a pile was the foot of a doll. When Tabitha pulled her out, she saw that dirt and stains covered her dress and body. Her hair was a giant knot, and her cloth body had several tears in the seams. But she was the same doll as Baby Hope.
Tabitha has always been the most compassionate of us girls. As a child, she would rescue dolls and stuffed animals from dumpsters, no matter if they were colored on, missing limbs, chewed, or naked. She tenderly brought them home, cleaned them up, and faithfully slept with every one in her bed at night. When the bed got crowded, she put them on rotation so no one would sleep alone too many nights at a time.
Tabitha, Piper, and Piper's first Christmas baby doll
When she got home with this doll, Tabitha was thrilled to discover she cleaned up wonderfully. All the stains and dirt came off in the wash, the dress came out like new, and her hair brushed out into soft curls. Even the torn fabric stitched up nicely. Tabitha sewed glittery Christmas ribbon onto her pantaloons, dress, and made a ribbon for her hair. By the time she handed the doll to me on Christmas, I thought she’d bought it at a vintage doll store for some crazy amount of money. She was beautiful. Her crying sound worked perfectly, and brought memories back.
Later that night, my sister Priscilla and I were talking about the doll. She paused, looked at me thoughtfully, and said, “You know Joy, her name is HOPE.”
My whole family knows how hard it has been for me that for various reasons, my husband and I don’t have children yet. At Tabitha’s gift of the BABY doll, I had teared up. At Priscilla’s comment, I really cried, and told her tongue-in-cheek that she should keep her comments to herself (so I wouldn’t be standing here blubbering!). We hugged, and held each other, and looked again at Baby Hope.
Hope. Joy. Two things I’ve spent a bunch of years without. I need a change. I know that our state of joy and hopefulness is not supposed to be dependent on our circumstances, but on who God is, and what he is promised. I think I've been a fighter; a fighter who fought to keep as much joy and hope as I could muster despite my sadness over the last few years. But I'm ready for more of it. I'm ready to experience more hope, more joy. To have some things I've been hoping for come true. To experience the joy of anticipating something good. And I HOPE, this is the year.
