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"Though the cherry trees don't blossom and the strawberries don't ripen, though the apples are worm-eaten and the wheat fields stunted, though the sheep pens are sheepless and the cattle barns empty, I'm singing joyful praise to God. I'm turning cartwheels of joy to my Savior God. Counting on God's Rule to prevail, I take heart and gain strength. I run like a deer. I feel like I'm king of the mountain!" (Habakkuk 3:17-19, The Message)
How do we find and hold onto the joy that belongs to us as Christ-followers? To find out, we talked with Thelma Wells, Extraordinary Women speaker and author of God Is Not Through with Me Yet (Multnomah).
In her early years of marriage and motherhood, Thelma experienced a near nervous breakdown. Then several years ago she was diagnosed with cancer and spent several days in intensive care on life support, not expected to live. Yet Thelma bubbles over with joy. Our Ginger Kolbaba asked, Why?
What gets in the way of us truly experiencing joy?
THELMA: Trying to be somebody we're not. God made us wonderfully in his image. But we look at life from the eyes of our culture: where I should live, what I should drive, where my kids should go to school, what I should have in my house. We compete for status, for recognition, for all these things that mean little or nothing in the end. And when we do that, we become confused about who we serve and why we serve.
If we aren't careful, we can become so depressed and confused and overwhelmed that our joy goes underground.
Underground? That's a different way to put it. Usually we talk about losing it.
We don't lose joy. Once God gives it to us, it's ours. The Spirit of God lives in us. And he brings joy that the world cannot give and cannot take away. But we can make it go underground, where it gets covered up by the stuff of the day.
Like what?
We women try to do too much. When I got married, I thought I could keep a house clean, do the laundry, make the meals, work in the community, work in the church, and have all these children.
I felt neglected. And I hated my life. I mean, hated it. Okay? And then I started hating my husband. I felt like I was doing everything for everybody and getting nothing in return. And I ended up almost having a nervous breakdown. That was a defining moment for me.
The doctor told me, "You're always trying to please everybody, and people don't even expect that of you." Then he told me to go out and get a job, to do something to satisfy me.
Were you like, "Excuse me. I have a full life"?
That's right. I had a life—but not a life I enjoyed. He understood that I'd lost who I was. I was doing all this volunteer work—but it wasn't something that was just for me. I was doing it because I thought that's what everybody expected. And I didn't really enjoy it. I needed to do something I enjoyed that was bigger than myself.
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