Does Being Joyful Mean We Should We Deny Our Emotions?

This has been a question on my heart and mind in a small way, just a little side subject that ought to be examined. Maybe it's the podcast I am listening to which is currently featuring a speaker who is a Holocaust survivor.

I have nothing but deep admiration and awe for the Jewish people. Anyone who thinks that the holocaust is a myth has got to be utterly blind to the reality. If it is fake then it has got to be the biggest hoax of all history. And yet those people exist. Sorry for the tangent but it truly boggles my mind.

Now, its one thing to talk about the potential of finding a reason to rejoice in every day life and a entirely different conversation when it comes to not only keeping your faith in such a time as that, but to ever find joy through it. So I wondered, how can you? And another thought that feeds into that came from another podcast ( i think it was Family Life Today.....that or Focus on the Family), it was just an off hand comment in the interview but the speaker said that God does not ask us to deny our emotions. Ah. They quoted Paul when he says to rejoice and mourn with one another (Romans 12:15). There is the passage in Ecclesiastes too, a well known one, that says for everything there is a season (Ecc. 3) and in verse four specifically states, "a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance." I think learning to be joyful, then, is partially about learning when that time is. Sometimes, its just not a good time for you to cheer up your friend or even yourself after a great loss. There is also a time when its been too long, the mourning time is over and the joy needs to be known again.

Another emotion we are not called to deny is Anger.  In Colossians 3 it does say "But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips" because we are new being in Christ. He is also entreating us, in total, to put off old ways because of that newsness in Christ. So it makes sense that Paul would go on to say in Ephesians 4 that "In your anger do not sin. Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry... Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice... Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you." As I have heard Joyce Meyer point out, it says "WHEN you get angry" here is how you handle it. OoooOooo I like a How To! Why? Because we are still human being who are gonna mess up. IT'S GONNA HAPPEN! God knows that, He's not sitting in Heaven shocked and ashamed of you, His grace, love and forgiveness is never ending. Calm down, work it out in an honest, caring way and forgive each other. Honestly, to know that God doesn't have the crazy expectation that I will be devoid of all emotion is a huge weight off my shoulders. Even Jesus got angry, and in public too! He was pretty openly pissed off in the temple situation, turning tables and all that (Matt 21:12). I feel slightly better throwing that hanger when I was frustrated... but it wasn't really frustrated for a good reason so that justification doesn't last long :P

Seriously though, I cannot tell you what a relief this is to a person so emotional as I. Granted I have also been told by professionals (by professionals I mean the medical kind) there is nothing wrong with anger, in and of itself, because it is a gauge, a red flag saying "Hey! They crossed the line!  That was a boundary breach!" But there is a good and bad way to deal with it. As Christians, we are encouraged to do it the good way because that reflects the nature of God, which might be the only way anyone on earth sees Him.

Mahatma Gandhi said, "It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence." I got that from the A-Team but did verify it :P See this information all just comes together like a random puzzle.....Ok you've seen the pieces, here's point: We have emotions. To make a play on Gandhi's quote: It is better to allow ourselves the real emotions God gave us, to feel them and handle them in a right manner than to put on a cloak of Rejoicing and Gladness to cover impotence (i.e. the quality of lacking strength or power; being weak and feeble). 

This blog is not an attempt to make a cloak to hide under OR to cast on others.  This is not a justification for legalistic behavior or a support for a belief that being unhappy is a sin. It is a journey into the heart of God and all He wants and has for us. Its a piece of the big picture.  A significant one, but only a part of the whole.

I am saying this for myself, as much as to anyone else. It is I who was shown this and so I am listening. And sharing. Because that's part of the blog, to share how I went about this research. Anyway, I just wanted to clarify that. It is so easy to get caught up in "shoulds." It is a comfort to know that we have a freedom in Christ. 

"Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes." Gandhi (again)

Amen.

So when you say "rejoice and be glad" you mean....

Well that's what this venture is all about, isn't it? What does God really mean when He says it? Those words can roll right off you like they were never even said, we have heard them so often.

"I'm having a crappy day"
"Rejoice and Be Glad! God said so!"
"Oh ok well then I'll get right on that..."

Yeah, this method of dispensing advice doesn't help me rally to it, I dunno about you. I am the kind of person that needs more substance and luckily God hasn't left me hanging! But I have to ask, seek, knock in order to find out. So lets seek...er...see... it's always nice to start with the Dictionary definition of things, isn't it? Lets see what the meaning is according to Webster (you know, before we dive into the Hebrew and Greek)

Rejoicing that we made it to the top of Diamond Head

re·joice   

verb \ri-ˈjȯis\

re·joiced re·joic·ing

Definition of REJOICE

transitive verb : to give joy to : gladden

intransitive verb : to feel joy or great delight

— re·joic·er noun

— re·joic·ing·ly— rejoice in

: have, possess

Examples of REJOICE

1. We all rejoiced over our friend's good luck.
2. <rejoiced over our unexpected victory on the soccer field>

Origin of REJOICE

Middle English, from Anglo-French rejois-, stem of rejoier, rejoir, from re- + joir to welcome, enjoy, from Latin gaudēre to be glad — more at joy

First Known Use: 14th century

Related to REJOICE

Synonyms: crow, delight, exuberate, glory, jubilate, joy, kvell, exult, triumph

Antonyms: displease

 

My niece "having a cheerful or happy disposition by nature" :)

¹glad

adj \ˈglad\

glad·der glad·dest

Definition of GLAD

1 archaic : having a cheerful or happy disposition by nature

2 a : experiencing pleasure, joy, or delight : made happy b : made pleased, satisfied, or grateful —often used with of <was glad of their help> c : very willing <glad to do it>

3 a : marked by, expressive of, or caused by happiness and joy <a glad shout> b : causing happiness and joy : pleasant <glad tidings>

4 : full of brightness and cheerfulness <a glad spring morning>

— glad·ly adverb

— glad·ness noun

Examples of GLAD

1. We're glad you could come.
2. I'll be glad to answer any questions you may have.
3. The mail brought glad news from our friends in England.
4. We've been through some sad times and some glad times.

Origin of GLAD

Middle English, shining, glad, from Old English glæd; akin to Old High German glat shining, smooth, Latin glaber smooth, bald

First Known Use: before 12th century

Related to GLAD

Synonyms: blissful, chuffed [British], delighted, gratified, happy, joyful, joyous, pleased, satisfied, thankful, tickled

Antonyms: displeased, dissatisfied, joyless, sad, unhappy, unpleased, unsatisfied

 

 

So there's the Webster definitions but what about the original Hebrew or Greek? Are they different? For this bit I used the website Blue Letter Bible, a great site if you haven't used it before. They even have a free iPod app! score. And it looks like they have an iPad one now too but I can't vouch for the awesome of that one.

The Lexicon result can be found here, if you want to have a look since I am not sure how to type in Hebrew (yeah sorry about that). Anyway :) in Hebrew, the word used is samach (Strong's H8055). Its Biblical usage is:

1) to rejoice, be glad

     a) (Qal)

        1) to rejoice

       2) to rejoice (arrogantly), exult (at)

       3) to rejoice (religiously)

    b) (Piel) to cause to rejoice, gladden, make glad

    c) (Hiphil) to cause to rejoice, gladden, make glad

I find this interesting! We say "Rejoice and be glad!" which can really be said in one word: Samach. However it does say that this particular usage is only found 152 times through out the King James Version. Hmmmm...well thats way off of over 800. 

Fortunately, there's more than one way to say "rejoice" in Hebrew and Greek! In fact there's fifteen ways in Hebrew and seven in Greek (there's a handy chart on BLB, check it out). I tallied it up and got a total of 652 references. Hmmmm leeeeeeeeettle closer to the goal, but not quite...we will have to see what else we can dig up. For now, my belly is hungry :P and your eyes may or may not be glazing over! So lets have a rest shall we? excellent :) 

The Project Begins

So...this is quite the undertaking... and I am loving it because I am a nerd who loves to research stuff. Yeah, I know, its "not normal". Anyway, I am not sure what version of the Bible good ol' PollyAnna was referring too so I am just kind of winging this a bit when it comes to accuracy...at least in that particular detail. So, my over-achievingness came out and said, "Let's cross reference different versions and bust out a thesaurus for other versions of those 'Joy' and 'Glad' words!"

I now have a LOT of verses.

But I don't really know how many or if they even all apply to the content. I mean, you really do have to look at context, you cannot just say a verse is about rejoicing and being glad just because it has those words. A couple of these referred to what the wicked rejoice in... it's not the same really....but i thought that would be interesting to look at as a sort of what-not-to-be-glad-about.

Don't laugh but I think I am going to use an excel spreadsheet. Seriously. There is no way I am counting all these.

Oh AND I am going to attempt to do this in order. I took all the verses that the concordance gave me for my searches so far and combined them to be in order. I know right!?! I am so proud of me too. But really, I might get an AHA moment and realize I didn't search....I dunno...the word Happy and have to go back a book. (Don't get too upset with me :P this is all a journey) But my handy-dandy excel sheet will help me keep track of whether or no I already looked at the verse to begin with. Because, lets face it, we are talking hundreds. I am gonna forget. Its like a given.

So...thats where its at right now, I am looking at the first verse in context and doing a little thoughtful jotting about it. Should have the first one soon! Yay!!

Because I can't wait any longer!!! I am so exicted....

So here it is! My attempt at a blog (this ought to be fun :) ). So in this blog you will find a variety of aspects, from crafting to personal discovery to scriptural pondering.

And who am I ? Well, I am a blessed and incredibly proud wife, my husband makes me laugh and teaches me the beauty and wonders of love everyday. I am a inquisitive traveler and insatiable dreamer. I am thoroughly fascinated by a lot of things, anything that saturates the curiosity at the moment really, and life is almost worthless to me without books and the internet since I have become so accustomed to the advantage of looking up the answer to whatever question strikes me at the moment. Sharing is Caring! (Except every time my friend said it, it was so dirty... anyway!)

Creativity is another trait I am constantly needing to express and I love the challenge of renewing objects, upcycling or whatever they call it now. Just being cheap and making it work prettily, lets just be honest there. When you visit my other blog, The Tinker's Muse, you can find what I intend to fill this with whatever random project I happen to complete successfully (It might be my own original thing or it might be that I try out a project and bring your attention to it, in which case I will attribute accordingly). as well as other awesomeness that should be noticed! I like to discover and share the cool creative things out there, maybe with my own twist, as you'll see.

I love God and have a unquenchable desire to find out all I can about the nature of Him. He is pretty amazing and I hope to do His nature justice in my writings. I cannot live without Him, even more so than books and the internet. He is the one thing that has truly made life worth living; I owe everything to Him and He is always there for me. Sounds trite right? Well, eventually, I will get around to writing my testimony and you will see that I really have a life to back up that statement. In the meantime, I guess email me about it or something.

The PollyAnna Project is my self-made quest to study scripture. If you have ever seen the movie PollyAnna or read the books then you know of the scene between her and the Pastor. Basically, they claim that there are over 700 verses that say we should rejoice and be glad and hence this is why her father invents the Glad Game. So I wondered if there really is that many verse and what it would be like to find them all, because a verse really should be in context in order for you to get the full value of it.

Speaking of discoveries, as I said, I find a lot of things interesting so don't be surprised to find a random blog about something that has very little do with either crafting/creating or gladness. There's way too much out there to be silly and limit oneself. So really....Welcome to my Mind :)

The "I Wish" Song

*note* this has nothing to do with the project. it's just thoughtful blogging. *end note*

This morning on my way to work I was exploring a new podcast (new to me anyway) and at the beginning the host discussed the "phenomena" of something called the "I Wish Song." He had just noticed how so many classic musicals and Disney movies introduce a main character with a song that declares "who it is they are and what it is they want," which essentially launches the story. Its so basic a concept and yet who really thinks about this and knows this for themselves? How often do we lose that sense of self and are thus directionless in our lives. In the book Talent is Never Enough by John C. Mawell, the author gives a great analogy about an octopus that I have never forgotten. The octopus is wearing roller skates on every tentacle and is going absolutely nowhere! Why? Because every tentacle is trying to go a different way than the other, there is no focus. Is he saying we should have only one dream and not eight? Actually, I think it is really trying to portray the distention in our everyday lives. If we are doing eight things, for example, and don't know WHY we are doing them then there is no focus. Without focus, there is no direction and without direction we feel like our lives are going nowhere at all. We feel drained with the effort too, you can bet that octopus is really working to stay up on all those rolling skates, eventually he is going to get tired and just straight collapse with the exhaustion and lack of motivation. Focus does give us motivation too, the drive and reason to keep going.

This is easier said than done, of course, when is it not? With all the insane....well...crap...going on these days, how do you find focus? Anyone can arguably have too many roles they play on a daily basis; just look at the statistics on stress and you will see that our lives honestly cannot fit much more in them without a major organ exploding. And yet we try! Why? Because we desperately want meaning. Does that mean sacrificing everything to live a life apart "finding ourselves"? Perhaps if you have driven yourself to exhaustion this extreme action seems like a rational plan. I, personally, don't see it as wholly beneficial to a person, let alone the others in their lives. its like an explosion of selfishness, really, brought on by years of no boundaries and giving up your own self to get what you have been told you want by a whole lot of idiots called society. Yeah, damn the man, but you don't need to do it in a stupid self serving way that really doesn't benefit anyone, including you.

I know about this because I am that person that has done all that, including the semi-selfish binge.  So before you write me off, think about this. After my binge I had a whole lot of experience and a whole lot of memories that I am still hoping will just go away with time. Emotionally, I was still where I was before. I people-pleasing addict with no idea how to set boundaries. I still had anger issues. I was still depressed. I hurt people because I was hurting and didn't know how to act anymore. I was still a wreck of a person. The only thing I had learned, really, was that I didn't want to be that way. Am I reformed? Not 100%. You can't make over 29 years of one kind of life style in a few years of work, but it's getting better and thats the point.

That brings us back to the "I Wish Song." I love those songs, I am a sucker for inspirational heart longings. I think everyone longs for something, I am sure that is why songs like "Belle", "Part of Your World" and "Out There" make me all happy and wistful. Do I know mine? Hmm... "Who it is they are and what it is they want." That could go one of two ways. There is the version of my life that i tell others, which can aptly describe "me" or at least what has happened to me and thus might explain why I act so differently than others. When I tell this story, though, it's edited to gloss over the parts where I did anything bad myself. If bad behavior is told, it's usually told to excuse the behavior. I am sure I am not alone in this; no one wants to think they are a bad person, they want to get over it, be sympathized with and encouraged. Not dumped. The second way you tell it, the whole truth, well, that might get you dumped.

A day or so ago a song came up on the shuffle, one from The Man of La Mancha. I LOVE that musical, though I hear it is nothing like the book. Haven't read it, don't know, don't care, this is separate work so lets just look at it like that, shall we? Ok, good, we're agreed. So this song, "Aldonza," comes on. If you don't know anything about the play, its key character is an old man who has decided to be a knight and sees the whole world through this chosen lifestyle. Everything is different to him because he chooses to see it that way. Skipping other aspects of the story, eventually the possibly-crazy fellow comes to an old inn with a lot of unsavory men and a whore. Yet to him she is not who she sees herself to be, the "knight" sees her as the lady he has been seeking and undertaking all these other quests for, Dulcinea. Aldonza's song is raw and ugly, bitingly angry, defensive and attacking, like a wounded animal in a corner so far gone in its abuse it sees any hand coming towards it as harmful, even if its intent is to gently sooth it. She attacks herself and the knight verbally, lays out her whole life story in dirty detail as proof that she nothign and will never be anything more. She begs him to go away or get his sexual dealing over with and stop torturing her with this insistence that she is a "Lady." But the knight continues to declare, even more impassioned, that she is forever his lady, Dulcinea, and that he will continue to quest on for her glory, she is that magnificent and valuable to him. His blind faith in her eventually changes her life forever when she finally believes him, that he truly sees that in her. It is that acceptance of his truth that washes away her own and saves her. In turn, she saves him, but I won't spoil any more of it for you.

This whole idea, for me, is gut-wrenching, honestly. It speaks to the utter reality of ourselves! Our ugly lives. We are disgusting creatures, some of us. When I face myself in the mirror and actually admit everything I have ever done then there are a lot of laws against people that I have broken. I am a bad person, not for the crime,/sin but for the harm it caused others. And yet we are pursued by a glorious Knight. He seems foolish to ourselves and others in his blind belief that we are, in fact, the beautiful creature for which He does everything. He "blindly" adores us, sees the worth and value in us, loves us and encourages us to treat others the same way. It is our acceptance of that belief that changes us, saves us from ourselves. We must be honest with ourselves to let it all go and to realize how much has been forgotten by the one being who knows everything. Its rather mind blowing.

So....Who are you? What is it you want? Will you be honest about it and face yourself, your true beliefs, or will you choose something to make society proud of you? Aldonza declares in an angry determined voice that she is "no one, nothing at all." She never says what she wants, other than to be left alone or to make money off the fact that men use her and forget her. This is not what she really wants, is it? I think the anger tells another story, that really this is just the reality she has accepted. It is the only thing she thinks she can get, and so she seems to have stopped wanting. The fact that she is angry says she wants, somewhere deep, something to be different, at the very least.

I am a messed up person who wants to be better than I am. I am someone who has learned a lot about life and yet, after a big decision, still wants to live it. I am creative and I want to express myself, even if no one is listening (<-----that took a while to get to, i used to want to be heard, noticed, now its ok either way, i just know i want to write. I don't think I will ever be able to write the way I truly want to if all i do is worry about pleasing people.) Will everything I want actually happen? Sometimes you just have to believe.