Happiness vs. Joy

I heard this thing on the radio, back in the days of being a teenager, about the difference between joy and happiness. The guy said that happiness relies on our circumstances, but joy transcends them. I find myself thinking about this concept these days when I find myself so terribly sad.

I will tell you that the thought of bringing home a new puppy brings so much happiness to my heart, but she cannot replace the loss of The Bean. Nothing can. The pain of his leaving our relationship must be worked through until I can rest with his being out of my life completely. I have been on this cycle, probably not too unlike the formal Grief Spiral,* where I move from dismay to anger to betrayal to understanding to compassion and back to dismay. I journaled about a month ago that I thought one day I would find the lock in the loop somewhere along the part named compassion, and that I prayed I would have the courage to put in my key and get out of the loop there. I figure I will be at rest when I send my GOOD Good-bye Letter, instead of his bull shit “your star is extinguished from my sky” for suggesting he get help! It is almost ready. Any day now.

I had this amazing dream of my father right before my graduation from seminary. In the dream I asked him if he was proud of me and he told me that he was. I also asked him if I would ever find someone like him to love me. He laughed and told me that someone like him would not be right for me, but that “yes” I would find real love in my life. (I should have asked “When?”!!) Right at the end of the dream he grabbed me and said to me, “Whatever happens I want you to promise me that you will remember the joy. Remember the joy. Remember the joy.” I promised him, but I can remember thinking he was a bit nuts about the whole thing. When I awoke, I was singing “I’ve Got That Joy, Joy, Joy, Joy, Down in My Heart.” I lay there asking myself where I had heard someone say “remember the joy” and the whole dream came flooding back to me.

The dream felt more like a visitation than just my imagination at work, so I find myself still holding onto the promise of love and the promise to remember the joy.

So where is the joy? As I move through these days I still feel great love for my friends and family. They surround me with support, care and love. They provide immeasurable joy to my life. I could not bring myself to celebrate Christmas in the traditional sense. No tree. No gifts. No lights. No dinner. No cookies. No tinsel. I wanted nothing to do with anything festive, but even in that place I found myself at church on Christmas Eve letting the Carols, Scripture, poems and prayers wash over my soul and feed it. I found joy there. I continue to find joy in the laughing and crying faces of the patients and families I care for.

I trust joy to be there for me even when my heart is breaking, my checking account is low, or the PMS swings into full gear! Joy, for me, is that confidence I have in the goodness within me, present in my life, present in others, and the silver chord that binds me to a loving God who never forgets whom I was created to be and the delight within which I was created.

My circumstances will change. Change is my one constant. Happiness will come and go. Joy will see me through regardless.

*The Grief Spiral is the concept that we experience grief in cyclical patterns opposed to a straight line where one might expect resolution to be at the end. As we process our grief, the spiral becomes more open, whereas in the beginning the spiral is much more tightly wound and we experience all of the range of feelings in an onslaught of sorts. Usually there is a catalyst to make us journey through the cycle after we have processed it, much like my dream served for me. I felt the loss of Daddy’s death and missed him being a part of my graduation from Duke. However, I was not experiencing the loss of him in the same way I did when he died when I was six–much more graceful open arches to my grief now.