Joyless Humour

We are to "count it all joy" when we fall into various trials. That is the challenge and the exaltation presented to us in the book of James. That is the challenge extended to me.

I consider myself a generally upbeat person. I get bogged down on occasion and then there's the usual stresses of life... but I wouldn't call myself a huge grouch.

But then I had a really lousy year on all counts in 2002. I was spiritually very low, which affected me emotionally and then physically. On top of work stress, I was going through a series of emotionally-draining relationships. I also allowed the problems to "dry up my bones" and take me away from spiritual things. I became more easily irritable and secular in my thinking, but the worst thing that happened to me was my sense of self-worth. It took such a beating because I couldn't see any way of getting myself out of the mire. I was caught in spiritual turmoil - on the one hand I knew the way home, and on the other hand I was too weak and stubborn to want to turn back. The more I saw myself drifting away from the ideal of a child of God, the less I believed I could get back on track, and the more I started perpetuating the secular self.

I started to swear when I was highly strung, which became a weekly affair seeing how everything was beginning to look unmanageable and dramatic. I was probably bordering on rather restrained hysteria; I blamed people who were least likely to be the cause of my trouble, and I surrounded myself with people who were willing to agree with me.

Here's the crunch: I never cried. I even laughed and could make light of things. I would relate my pain to those closest to me with such macabre and audacious humour, that they were soon laughing with me. I never stopped going to church, never stopped doing work for the assembly, and continued teaching classes. I took notes at sermons, fellowshipped with the brethren and remained very numb, with a ready smile on my face.

But I was never joyful. If anything, the conflict I had within myself - the flesh vs the spirit - came to such a head that friends closest to me became disillusioned with what the gospel was all about. They started to tell me things like, "I'm mad with your church because they will probably judge you and not understand," or "That's why I'm not a Christian... if you were a heathen like me, this would not be a problem." (Yes, they actually call themselves Heathens when they want to tease me about the faith.)

One of the things I am repentant about now... one of the things I continually bash my head with a stick for... one of the things that makes me doubt sometimes as to whether I have been truly forgiven for sins past, is the fact that I was such a lousy testimonial to the healing powers and righteousness of the church and God. If I had more faith, more humility, more wisdom, more JOY... God could have used me to demonstrate how attractive and comforting his promises are, when crisis strikes.