Fact: I am insecure about my writing when it’s not demanded from an overflow of desolate emotion[s].

Maybe that’s why pain beguiles me.  I don’t like pain, but, somehow, it seems to be the only thing that provides me with enough bravery to inscribe my thoughts.  Sorrow composes beauty—I’ve witnessed it create masterpieces in the lives around me, but perhaps I need to gain a similar perspective on lighter emotions.

Today, I do not write from emotions drenched in disappointment, but, rather, from an abundance of joy.

The joy of the LORD is your strength.

God carved this verse in my mind at the beginning of 2017: page after page in various notebooks were etched with the simple eight words.  I often scribbled the verse at some of my happiest moments, and thus it seemed peculiar when God reminded me of this verse.  It came in moments when I didn’t feel like I needed strength–moments when I was strong.  I was so happy, so why would God remind me of a verse that seemed more appropriate for perilous days?  

I was such a fool to think I didn’t need those words because I didn’t understand the weight of them at that time.

God allowed those joyous moments, each one meriting my trust and my strength in Him, and He reminded me at those specific times so that I would know exactly where strength proliferates when those perilous days would finally come.   

Truthfully, I couldn’t remember where those words came from… Thus, I googled the verse a couple weeks ago, and that’s when I gained a new understanding.

Then he [Nehemiah] said to them, “Go, eat of the fat, drink of the sweet, and send portions to him who has nothing prepared; for this day is holy to our Lord.  Do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.

Nehemiah 8:10

I was unaware of the beginning of the verse’s final sentence each time I journaled it. 

Do not be grieved,

for the joy of the Lord is your strength.

My eyes opened.  Inhale, exhale.

God engraved that verse in my mind when I was strengthened in Him to show me that He was the same God when I was crushed in spirit; He gave me that verse amidst joyous occasions so that I would know where to acquire strength when I felt despairingly weak.  He was there with me in those joyous moments, showing me His loving kindness in ways I would not comprehend until nothing else made sense. 

The timing that confused me was the exact time that God was pre-preparing to strengthen me again.  He knew how events would unfold in my life, and He knew I would need to remember His kindness when I felt that I could no longer bear my circumstances.  It’s one of the greatest paradoxes that beautifully played out in my own life: “Therefore I am well content with weakness, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong,” II Corinthians 12:10 (emphasis added).

In joy I write, remembering the sovereignty of a God who continued to remind me of His goodness when life was “good” simply to re-remind me of His goodness when life didn’t feel good. 

God reveals His strength gloriously through the depths of my humility.  I despaired, but He did not allow me to linger in anguish.   He reminds me that He is good, that yesterday and today are temporary, and that I can trust Him with tomorrow.

I received this notebook for Christmas from Victoria Romano, with the verse displayed on its back cover. Tori didn’t know what this verse had meant to me, she was just a dear friend giving a sweet gift. Behind the scenes, Christ was strengthening me through my weakness in the remembrance of this verse and those moments.  I felt unbearably weak for so long, but He renews me each day:  I feel strong again because that verse permeates my every breath.

Thank you, Lord, for doing in me what I wished would not be done, and for reviving the life I had not known was dead.