Good morning…
Up in the middle of the night, I return a loving text to a dear, dear friend who feels absolutely heartbroken and helpless. Next, I open an email from another grieving friend. Her words express divine wisdom we all so desperately crave.
“This just came to me,” she writes, “from author Ross Gay.”
What happens if joy is not separate from pain? What if joy and pain are fundamentally tangled up with one another? Or even more to the point, what if joy is not only entangled with pain, or suffering, or sorrow, but is also what emerges from how we care for each other through those things? What if joy, instead of a refuge or relief from heartbreak, is what effloresces from us as we help each other carry our heartbreaks?
“I needed this now,” she concludes. “Maybe you, too.”
Seeking deeper meaning, I research the new-to-me word effloresces. To burst into bloom. To blossom. To burgeon. To flourish. To flower.
What if joy is what blossoms from us as we help each other carry our heartbreaks? What if joy and pain are not separate, but are fundamentally tangled up? What if joy emerges as we care for the heartbroken and the helpless?
Flowering these possibilities, I need this now. Maybe you do too.
I turn to God and make this request on behalf of each of you and my grieving friends. With every sun’s rising, surprise us with Your love, satisfy us with Your kindness. Then we will sing with joy and celebrate every day we are alive. You have spent many days afflicting us with pain and sorrow; now match those with years of unspent joy (Psalm 90:14-15, VOICE).
Loving each other well, may we witness joy emerge.
…Sue…
