Joy

Shortly after I lost Susie my friend Roger invited me to a Grief Share group. This is not something I would have done on my own, and I think at times I did it primarily because he was thoughtful enough to invite me to do so.

I had no trouble sharing my grief, I needed to do so. I needed to talk about it, and welcomed anyone who was willing to listen, of which I was blessed to have many.

Grief Share was different though. These were strangers, people who were sharing the loss of their own loved one. Each of us were lost ourselves in some way, each loss different than another’s, each deeply personal. Our common ground was loss, but the stories, the relationships, the responses were all very different. We were alone but not alone, both at the same time.

This was a well structured video/workbook type of gathering, not my favorite small group approach to life’s events, especially the events that brought this group together. I understood the need for structure, but I still yearned for simply sharing.

My many small group experiences have always been at their best when the sharing deepened, vulnerability entered the group, and honest hard truth opened up and the group of strangers became a group of fellowship and trust.

Despite my initial reticence I stayed with the group, and I’m glad I did. But I shared with the group that there was one element, the actual theme of Grief Share, that for me personally, I could never see happening. That theme was “From Mourning to Joy”. I shared openly that for me “joy” was an impossible place to ever see again.

Susie was my joy. Susie was gone from my earthly presence forever, and the possibility of joy was gone with her. That was my hard reality that I knew I to somehow accept.

That has been my truth for three years now. The joy of Susie has been a deep dark hole that could never be experienced again.

Over the last three years I always feel Susie’s urging for me to engage myself in opportunities that are put in front of me. I know in my heart that when someone asks me to join this, be a part of that, say yes to an invitation to participate in some way, it’s exactly what Susie would be telling me. So, I do say yes, I do join and engage, and yes, it is always rewarding. It keeps me out of that dark place where I could so easily fall if I didn’t listen and pay attention to Susie’s urging’s. I enjoy my participation in almost every gathering or activity to which I say yes. But I also realize that “enjoy” and “joy” are two entirely different things.

For three years “joy” has remained that place that is impossible to reach. Susie herself would be very disappointed in me that I have felt that way. She had a favorite artist/writer of children’s story’s named Tasha Tudor whose theme in all she did was simply “Take Joy”. That’s what Susie would want me to do, but I have never been able to get there - until this past week.

This past week I was somewhat involuntarily volunteered to participate in Summer Bible Camp at our Church. While active in many things there, this is one thing I had never done.

For four days I was surrounded by 220+ children ages 4 - 10 along with 85 youth and adult volunteers (who “became like little children”) as instructed in Matthew 18:3.

I was almost literally swept into joy. I was slow to realize what was happening to me. That “impossible dream” of experiencing joy was being fulfilled for the first time in three years. Although I am writing a lot here, it is still impossible to express my personal joy of experiencing joy.

For me, as for anyone, the experience of my grief has always been my own and very personal. No two are alike. I feel the same is true of this past weeks experience of joy. Everyone there was experiencing it in their own way, but to my surprise, so was I.

Psalm 126:5 says; “Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy.”

I have sown with tears for three years, and that will likely never end, but now I have reaped from what I have sown.

God was a little sneaky about the way He got me here. I can just picture He and Susie plotting together to make this happen.

I now yearn to do as Tasha Tudor said and Take Joy. And I know in the deepest part of my heart that Susie is so very happy, and that makes me happy as well.

Blessings to all of the many people of all ages who helped remind me of what joy looked like and gave me an opportunity to enjoy joy once again.

David Butler