Joy
- Yona Downes
- Jul 27, 2022
- 6 min read
Updated: Oct 17, 2023
Joy
Matt 13:4 & John 16
A feeling of deep rooted happiness.
Sorrow will turn to joy.
God knows what’s happening and I don’t. So, all I can do is live and trust HIM like I did as a child. Complete trust in HIM makes me happy. I get to be a little girl again. A little girl who wants to learn to ride a bike with her dad. A little girl who wants to play and copy all HIS movements and words. A little girl who needs her dad. A little girl who has no worries and all she does is walk with her dad & talk with her dad. He knows and I don’t! The joy of the LORD is my strength.
Joy only comes from, first, remembering who God is and who I am to God. I’m HIS little girl forever, so when I’m sad, my Father makes me smile again, laugh again, and love again. I get to worship and shout about who my Heavenly Father is.
Have you ever wondered why children are always filled with Joy no matter what’s going on in their life?
I’ve always loved children and their joy was one reason why I became a nurse years ago before I knew Christ. I love the joy as a child and I’ve always planned to remain a child at heart no matter my age, degree, or status. Seasons of sorrow have brought me to surrender complete trust in HIM. This trust in HIM leads to joy, joy that can’t be defeated. I’m sorrowful now, but joy will come. Through all the pain I want to give Him the joy that will always remain. He is my joy! So, I’ll jump in the deep with Him, with no fear, with only love. He is my heaven. He is my need. He is my joy. God holds me in sorrow. God is all mystery and I’m HIS child who seeks HIM, not for answers, but to journey through the maze of mystery. I want to find and fit the puzzle pieces together. I want to swim to the deep with my Father & Friend. He is my beginning and end. I’m HIS child & that will never change or die. My God helps me to love beyond all the ways I could’ve imagined to! I have the joy of a child and I plan to keep this joy in all sorrow! I plan to know that God doesn’t owe me anything.
God just loves to give, but that doesn’t mean HE doesn’t take away the things and people that bring you joy.
I remember when I would do anything to stay out of my house that didn’t feel like a home anymore after my dad’s infidelity, I stayed at Carrie & Cait’s, my best friends, house usually every weekend. I remember every time I left Carrie’s house I would cry on the drive home because I always had this unexplainable joy with her and cait. I had joy I never deserved and joy I always wanted..that joy came from love. Before I surrendered my life to Christ I always questioned why I never wanted to leave Carrie & Cait! It was always because I wanted to hang onto the joy of the LORD a little longer, much longer! Now knowing Christ was with me all along, through all pain, my joy stays. Carrie left to heaven and my joy still stays in all my grief because I have the LORD forever, there’s no dying.
I remember on the 4th of July a flood of tears came running down my face without warning and it wouldn’t stop, so I got up from laying down on Kim’s blanket during the guys volleyball game and I run for the hills as Stasia sees me crying and asks, “ are you okay?” I say,
“ I’m just having a moment.”
I ran to the tree at the park, grabbing tissues. Kim and Abby came to console me and I kept saying, “ I’m so happy, I’m so happy, I have so much joy, but I miss her and it hurts so bad it feels like my heart rips open repeatedly and randomly but then closes and opens again.” My heart was like an accordion playing a song 🪗. I realized this was my heart of joy in suffering like the scriptures.
Proverbs 14:13
“Even in laughter the heart may be in pain, And the end of joy may be grief.”
I have to hope in the joy to come even though the disappointment I’ve been experiencing with loss is so overwhelming. I actually understand now what it means to have your faith shaken, stirred, and tried!
I did everything I was supposed to as a child of God.
I love God with all my heart, all my soul, all my mind and all my strength, as a daughter of the LORD, but the truth is I haven’t even come close. Only through this season with my shaken faith, broken heart, and questioning of the meaning of the goodness ofGod, I have discovered that I never loved God before loss and grief, like I do today!
This season of loss and grief I became a child again. A little girl who needed her Father for everything. A little girl who completed trusted and depended on her Father to wake her up, get her out of bed, wipe her tears away, bind up her wounds, feed her, and shower her with love until she could walk again! Little girls love their Father’s with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength.
Righteousness, truth, love, and endurance comes like a belt of Christ that holds us to heaven, the hope of eternity. Carrie, my heavenly best friend, is in the cloud of witnesses now, at 24. She ran her race of faith when God called her home, the perfect time.
I’m surrounded by YOU and that will never change. It’s so beautiful to know that all of heaven is cheering us on. Because of this we have hope for tomorrow, hope to keep going, and to never give up! Every loss and all disappointments always could become a seed of increase, of greater blessings, and unimaginable recompense!
“Jesus replied, “Now the time has come for the Son of Man to enter into his glory. I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat is planted in the soil and dies, it remains alone. But its death will produce many new kernels—a plentiful harvest of new lives. Those who love their life in this world will lose it. Those who care nothing for their life in this world will keep it for eternity.”
John 12:23-25
I will sow and reap! I sow into my intimacy with God, with HIM in secret. In secret is where all my pain is enormous yet crazy beautiful and produces the most love, joy, and peace in me! I come out of the secret place with joy because of HIS glory.
I discovered when you enter the secret place you never come out the same! And I’ve realized all that I come out with isn’t even for me, it’s to bring it forward to all of you, to strangers, and to the lost, so that it all glorifies God. Isn’t that our mission here on earth anyway?
My Father entrusted me to embrace Himself as a child in order to be more like HIM. Without all this brokenness, I wouldn’t be open enough to reach this depth of intimacy with my Father in heaven who came down for me in my season of sorrow turned to joy! I thank God for the moments with Carrie in the hospital, the wake, and funeral. In those moments of pain all I could say was, “ thank you God, thank you God, she’s in the best place in your arms forever.” And I remember those moments and I say it again! I rejoiced in my pain and I loved God like never before. I loved that God didn’t want her to suffer anymore. I loved that I was here to suffer still and she didn’t have to! I still say, thank you God! Here I am, I will take this instead of her being here any day!
And not only this, but [with joy] let us exult in our sufferings and rejoice in our hardships, knowing that hardship (distress, pressure, trouble) produces patient endurance;”
Romans 5:3 AMP
“Even in laughter the heart may be in pain, And the end of joy may be grief.”
Proverbs 14:13 AMP
“as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet bestowing riches on many; as having nothing, yet possessing all things.”
2 Corinthians 6:10 AMP
“Instead, be very glad—for these trials make you partners with Christ in his suffering, so that you will have the wonderful joy of seeing his glory when it is revealed to all the world.”
1 Peter 4:13 NLT
“So be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you must endure many trials for a little while.”
1 Peter 1:6 NLT
If this blessed you, encouraged you, or consoled your heart:
Venmo: @Yona-Downes
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