Quote:

"But it is when we are not ourselves that believing in the impossible - in the unseen - becomes most vital. We must believe in something beyond you or I." – Sara Ella, The Wonderland Trials. 

Context:

When choosing a theme for today’s post, I chose to write on on choosing joy in hard times. Now looking at the quote I chose and the theme, you may think they don’t line up. You may ask what does believing in the unseen, in the impossible, have to do with joy? 

I believe that is exactly what it is to choose joy in hard times. It often feels impossible. Joy is a thing that you cannot see or grasp with the human hand. It is something beyond us. Beyond our imagination. Beyond our minds. We have to search beyond ourselves and believe in the impossibility of joy in difficulty to realize that in fact it is not all that impossible after all. 

Alice Liddell in the Wonderland Trials went through this. Even in the hard moments, when she realized that the world is not all tea and cakes, that there is something beyond us in suffering, something that is ever so hard to grasp but not impossible, she got to a moment where joy was the only the possible thing because the struggle is what grows us. It's what strengthens us.

I’ve experienced this in my life. Being in that moment of despair and ache and not understanding what is going on or why it's happening. All the what if’s circulating in your mind, replaying your fears over and over. In that moment joy seems as impossible as the sky turning red. 

It's not until I experienced a moment of beauty to realize that joy does not come from our circumstances. Because if so we would all be miserable all the time, with random bouts of happiness. But happiness and joy are not the same. Happiness is a feeling that passes in a moment. Joy is something that lasts, something that is found in eternal matters. 

We may be paralyzed by our fears, drowning in uncertainty, lost in distress, but we can still choose joy. The story that always gets me is in the Book of Acts, when the apostles are healing all these people in the streets of Jerusalem, but then a party of the Sadducees are angered and come and arrest them. In jail an angel of the Lord appears to them and opens the doors of the prison and leads them out. They go and continue into the temple courts and begin to teach the people again, right after they had been thrown into jail. From there the Sanhedrin hear of this and have the apostles flogged for speaking the name of Jesus. And then comes the verse that always brings me chills, “The apostles left the Sanhedrin rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name.”

Can you imagine that? Rejoicing because you were allowed to suffer for Jesus? Counted worthy of suffering? And not just our day in and day out small struggles, but being flogged. Being beat with a rope, the pain growing and growing, feeling as if your whole body is on fire. And then coming out of that and rejoicing? 

It's hard to even understand the meaning of that. 

It shows us and gives us reason to believe and understand that this phenomenon we call joy is not relative at all. But where does it come from? We know it does not depend upon our feelings or our circumstances. So where? 

I believe that it comes from God. Because even in our darkest moments, He is there. There is light, and there is love, and hope, and goodness, and beauty in the hardest and most terrifying moments. His goodness extends beyond the biggest storms. His light goes up higher than the tallest mountain. His love reaches as far as the east is from the west. He is always there, so we have no reason to fear, because His great arm is holding us. And that, my friends, is where our joy comes from. It's the certainty to know that no matter what is going on, God is in control. He holds my future, my life is in His hands, so I can rejoice. And when we reach that moment, nothing is impossible. 

As Alice does in this exciting story, and as did the Apostles in Acts, we must reach beyond the seen, believe in something beyond us, and realize that joy is not impossible. In fact when we get to that moment, it is the most possible thing of all, because it is all we have left. 

So I challenge you today, to look at your life no matter what you face and to believe in a bit of impossible. For that is where true joy comes from. 

“Count it all joy my brothers when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect that you may be that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.” -- James 1: 2-4

Written by: Adalyn E. Skains