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Learning the Discipline of Joy
The summer after ninth grade, I went to camp for a week. I was so excited. Long before I left home, I was already thinking about all the friends I would meet, the cool things I would get to do and, who knew – maybe even kiss a girl when the counselors weren’t looking!
As a kid in Florida my summers were mostly spent outside – barefoot, climbing trees, wading through chest deep swamps, making forts in the woods, looking for snakes – the usual stuff. A few days before I was scheduled to leave for camp, I got poison ivy. This was not any old case of poison ivy. This was the granddaddy of all poison ivy. On one of my adventures through the woods, I had shimmied up a tall sapling. Unbeknownst to me, the tree was covered in poison ivy. Of course, I was barefoot and only wearing shorts and no shirt, which didn’t help matters.
I was covered from head to toe in itchy sores. When you have poison ivy everyone is suddenly the expert on treatments and cures. My grandparents swore that the best thing you could do for poison ivy was to pour bleach onto the affected area, so I followed their instructions carefully. I stood outside dousing myself with bleach. Nothing improves poison ivy like a nice chemical burn. I stood outside dancing around in my underwear pouring bleach on myself. I caught my little sister peaking out the window and laughing at me more than once.
The result of all that bleach pouring was first-class scabs over most of my body. It looked disgusting and hurt even worse. With dawning horror, I understood that the summer was going to be a lot different from what I had envisioned. As I moped through the house, my mom gave me some of the best advice I have ever received. “Josh, you can either go to camp with poison ivy or you can choose not to go to camp. You no longer have the choice to go to camp without poison ivy.”
As the weeks tick by since Henry’s death, I keep thinking about my fourteen-year-old self covered in oozing poison ivy sores. I feel like that now. I miss Henry so much. I want to hold him and snuggle him and listen to his giggles. My desire is simple – I want Henry back. And that is the one thing I can’t have. I really only have two choices – to lie down and give up or to grow through pain. Those are the only choices. There is no third option. I can’t go to camp without poison ivy. I can’t have Henry back. But I can grow.
We live in a time that tells us we should never hurt. If there is pain, there must be something wrong. If you are sad, then it needs to be fixed. If you are struggling, then that struggle must be eliminated. But what if the struggle is essential? Maybe it’s okay to hurt? Maybe it’s more than okay but necessary. Maybe brokenness is a gift?
What if brokenness is the thing that tears down the hardened walls we have built around our hearts that prevent us from letting in God’s love and showing that love to those around us? Before Henry’s death, my heart was so hard, it had calluses. In perfect lawyer efficiency, I judged everyone and everything around me. I knew best and I had the answers. I was blind to the suffering around me and deaf to the cries of others. I was mainly concerned about myself. I don’t feel that anymore. Instead of answers I have questions. Instead of certitude, I have confusion and pain. The calluses are gone. I have to ask myself, why did I waste so much time in the land of self-centeredness? Who could I have helped if only my heart was broken earlier?
Brokenness leads to growth, and there are two things I am learning about growth.
Learning my multiplication tables was not fun but it was important. I hated stoichiometry in tenth grade chemistry (I actually hated chemistry class in general) but I still had to learn how to balance an equation. First jobs and first years of marriage are tough. As I think through it, all learning and all growth involve struggle.
We accept the necessity of struggle when it comes to physical growth. If I go to the gym and only lift the bar, I will never get stronger. I have to add resistance. Once a particular weight becomes easy for me to bear, I have to add more weight. No matter how long I train, I will never arrive. I will always have to keep struggling and adding more weight if I want to keep growing. Struggle is an essential element to growth.
In addition to being painful, growth is also personal. I have to do it. No one else can do it for me. I can’t hire someone to get in shape for me. It does me no good to have a friend run for me on the treadmill or do my reps in the weight room. I have to do it. I have to struggle.
The Bible tells me that it’s okay to struggle, that my pain can be productive. The book of James reminds me in Chapter 1 to “Consider it pure joy my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”
While I mourn Henry’s loss, I am excited to be growing. I am excited to be changing into a new person. I ask myself sometimes if God were to miraculously give me back my son, would I accept? I know that I would. But if I am honest, I also know that if that were to happen I would lose my brokenness and the growth that comes with it. This pain, this brokenness, is essential to my growth. For this growth I am thankful.
How are you broken? Where is your pain? What is your struggle? Embrace your brokenness. Run to it with open arms. Let the pain break away your shell. Let it lead you to a new place of growth, love, and compassion.
Carolyn says: Josh, even in the valley, God is good, even there He is faithful and true, beyond this valley through this shadow of death, joy does come in the morning. Love all of you. ❤️
Roseann potter says: Thankyou
Love it
After my beloved husband died suddenly on February 14 th 2015, I have been in that deep kind of grief that only a parent or a widow or widower knows who has truly lost the love of their life
In my grief however there were too many who thought… oh she just needs time alone
It is a mistaken concept
You do not avoid and shutter away the parents or widows
It is a communal thing
If our society embrace the berieved we would have a more whole society
Yes we grow, and yes most of us will go through something like this
My goal is to remind everyone that we all need each other
We need to grieve as a whole not seperate
Daniel Cook says: Josh, as I read through this post, I think of my teenage years. First, I want to say that I realize the story I’m about to tell is no way comparable to what others have gone through in their lives and nothing compared to what your family has endured. However, it’s my story. It’s what has shaped me. I moved to South Florida from Ohio when I was 7 years old. Having moved so young, I consider myself Floridian because it’s where I grew up. I wasn’t incredibly popular. I had my circle of friends and by the time 9th grade came, I had an excellent life. My grades were A’s and B’s. I was in mostly Honors classes. I was in a High-School based Pre-Med program. In the first quarter we learned Latin medical abbreviations (which I still remember today), Psychiatry based on Sigmund Freud (Id, Ego, Super Ego). My girlfriend and I were on the Freshman Homecoming Ballot. (We lost 1st place by a dozen votes to the JV Football captain and his girlfriend). So considering everything a teenage boy would want, I had it all.
Then came another move. To North Carolina. To North-by God-Carolina. I went from the suburbs of Florida to town-and-country North Carolina. My parents asked about honors classes in Junior High where 9th grade was held – there really weren’t any. My options were masonry (brick laying, not the men in funny aprons) or plumbing, or electrical classes – How about those? Um, no thanks. I was going to be a doctor and while fixing my own plumping and electrical lines would be cool, it wasn’t what I needed at this time. I managed through it. I counted days until I got to go back to South Florida to see friends and my girlfriend. I worked so hard trying to convince my parents to let me move back there for the rest of high school. I was miserable. I came up with a saying at the time: give me another reason and I might just end everything. I was a ‘nobody’ in North Carolina and I hated it.
So, why do I write this? I could write volumes of what I learned during those years. Most importantly I learned how to look inward. I learned to spend time with myself and see what was going on inside my own head. It was weird. I found that I could start looking at my wants and desires from a 3rd person perspective. So what did I learn? I learned that I’m actually pretty shy. I’m not the extrovert that most people know me as (including you, Josh). It takes me a while to come out of my shell. I learned, much to Nancy Reagan’s disappointment, just say Yes. (Nancy Reagan made popular the phrase “just say no”). Kids asked me to go ride bikes, hang out, and be friends. I said no. I didn’t feel like it. A year later when I was ready, no one was there. I had pushed everyone away. I learned when chapters close, it’s ok to go back and read them, but usually nothing will be added to that chapter. What I mean is that I’d go back to South Florida. My friends had moved on. There were new kids that I didn’t know. The cliques had changed and they did so without me (How could they?!?!). I didn’t belong there anymore. They had moved on. I had not.
After a year, my girlfriend and I broke up. My parents enrolled me in a private school to get a better education (it was essentially Southern Baptist – and that’s another story altogether). And while a year later, I had made North Carolina my new home and had made many friends, I wasn’t conscientious of all the things I’ve written here. It took time and a lot of introspection. Because while I was miserable, hated everything around me, and wished it’d all end – today I know I’d repeat it again without a hesitation because I know it taught me more about the world, myself, and how I fit in the world, than I ever would have learned had I not gone through it.
So, this is a long story to say I agree with what you said here, Josh. And, you’re not alone.
Cathy J White says: Thanks, Josh, and I’m so glad you’ve remembered my sage advice. This is a song that has been meaningful to us over the years.The Holy Land of the Broken Heart by Michael Kelly Blanchard
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=the+holy+land+of+the+broken+heart&view=detail&mid=7662A539E8403B7CA1EA7662A539E8403B7CA1EA&FORM=VIRE
Janis says: Cathy…this song is a treasure; thank you for sharing! Your wisdom served Josh well then and now; and is a priceless and timeless gift to others who are blessed to read Josh’s post.
NIna says: Josh, Your words are such an inspiration. Thank you for sharing your personal testimony. God is using you in miraculous ways to reach those in need and who are broken. We each have our struggles, but God is our source of help. Praise God for our struggles as you so eloquently put it, we grow closer to God through them. I have been blessed reading your precious words. I love the verse you posted from James. Praise be to God.
Lynda Helton says: Josh and Sarah, Your writing is breathtaking. I too have suffered tremendous loss over the past year and I’ve come to realize that though the events were horrific, I now feel that the experiences are woven into the fabric of me. Grief is such a strange visitor. On any given day I can feel overwhelmed by it all, on other days I feel free of it and there’s no advance warning of when grief plans a visit. Of course, this thing called grief is something I know I’ll never “get over”, I feel I’m learning to live with it as part of me and there’s some comfort in that. It’s incredibly painful yet inspiring to read your posts (I’ve read them all) and I wish you love and peace as you and your family move forward. Namaste Lynda
Janis says: Josh…your post reminded me of the story about the butterfly and cocoon.
A man found a cocoon of a butterfly. As he continued to observe the cocoon, one day a small opening appeared. He sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through that little hole. Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could, and it could go no farther.
Then the man decided to help the butterfly, so he took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon. The butterfly then emerged easily. But it had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings. The man continued to watch the butterfly, expecting that, at any moment, the wings would enlarge and expand to be able to support the body which would surely contract and shrink, as well. Neither happened! In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings. It never was able to fly.
What this man in his kindness and haste did not understand was that the restricting cocoon had a greater purpose; and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the tiny opening was nature’s way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon.
Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our lives. If God allowed us to go through life without any struggles, we would be weak and ill-equipped. We would not be as strong as what we could have been and what He intended for us. And we could never fly…
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