Joy, The Promise of Joy, Words of Endurance

What is it that enables a man who
cannot walk, cannot speak, cannot
breathe, and cannot eat to live a life
that is so filled with joy that it overflows
to brighten the lives of others?

For Charlie Wedemeyer, who for 18 years has fought a physically debilitating battle with Lou Gehrig’s disease, living in joy has been part gift and part choice. During the early years, the battle robbed Charlie of joy. At one point, he told his wife Lucy that he would rather be dead than to live as he was. Her response was that she would rather have him as he was than not to have him at all. When Lucy expressed that love for him, she gave Charlie a precious gift that prompted him to make a conscious choice to not only live, but to live life as fully and joyfully as possible. And the Wedemeyer family does live life with abundant joy.

Humor in all forms, from jokes to pranks to just plain silly fun, helps brighten the hard work of helping Charlie live. Charlie’s motto, “any excuse for a party,” made zany parties a trademark of the Wedemeyer household during their children’s teenage years. One time Charlie insisted on sneaking into a hospital long after visiting hours to throw an impromptu party for a teenage friend. No one on the hospital staff ever thought to stop a nurse pushing an obviously sick man in a wheelchair down the corridor! Even the balloon bouquet Lucy carried didn’t give them away.

Another time, Charlie was released from an extended hospital stay so that he could go home “to die.” Two days later, the whole family, including two nurses and all of Charlie’s medical equipment, boarded a plane for a vacation in Hawaii. Their first stop was at the airport gift shop where they purchased a beautiful tropical beach postcard that they mailed to Charlie’s doctor!

Through it all, Charlie is convinced that God can salvage good out of any circumstance. Believing that God has chosen him to bring His message of hope and encouragement to others, Charlie has chosen the path of joy.

“Sometimes,” he warns, “we’ll all be faced with some circumstance that will seem too difficult to cope with. When that time comes, we have to make a choice because God gives each one of us the power of choice. We can choose to be miserable, feel sorry for ourselves, throw our own private pity party, and cause everyone around us to be miserable, too. Or we can choose to face our trials with God’s help, knowing that we’ll come out the other side as stronger people for the experience. We all have that choice.”

As Charlie’s friend, Tim Hansel, reminds us, “Pain and suffering is inevitable, but misery is optional.” Charlie stands as a powerful testimony to the importance of making that choice.

Joy, The Promise of Joy, Words of Endurance

In his book, Turning Toward Joy, David Jeremiah quotes what he calls a prescription for unhappiness. “Follow this prescription faithfully for two weeks,” he promises, “and I guarantee you unhappiness!”

• Make little things bother you; don’t just let them, make them.
• Lose your perspective on things, and keep it lost. Don’t put first things first.
• Get yourself a good worry—one about which you cannot do anything but worry.
• Be a perfectionist: condemn yourself and others for not achieving perfection.
• Be right, always right, perfectly right all the time. Be the only one who is right and be rigid about your rightness.
• Don’t trust or believe people, or accept them at anything but their worst and weakest. Be suspicious. Impute ulterior motives to them.
• Always compare yourself unfavorably to others, which is the guarantee of instant misery.
• Take personally, with a chip on your shoulder, everything that happens to you that you don’t like.
• Don’t give yourself wholeheartedly or enthusiastically to anyone or to anything.
• Make unhappiness the aim of your life, instead of bracing for life’s barbs through a “bitter with the sweet” philosophy.

Lord of Joy . . . You promise joy in the
midst of our suffering, so please let me know
your joy today as I persevere in faithful service
and as I demonstrate true commitment in my
tasks. Give me your smile, let me feel your
peace dancing in my heart. That, for me will be
true joy.
Joni Eareckson Tada

Joy, The Promise of Joy, Words of Endurance

So my heart exults, my very soul rejoices,
my body, too, will rest securely,
for you will not abandon my soul…
you will reveal the path of life to me,
give me unbounded joy in your presence,
and at your right hand everlasting pleasures.
Psalm 16:9-11, Jerusalem Bible

When we suffer, one of the things we hunger for the most is the feeling of joy. We long to experience happiness, to laugh, to feel lighthearted, to feel comforted, to feel hope, to look forward to the future with delight rather than dread. But suffering is not conducive to joy. Suffering is one of the challenges on the journey of life that makes joy very hard to find.

This was true for me when I was in and out of the hospital, fighting my battle against cancer. I felt fear, anxiety, frustration, doubt, uncertainty, but I rarely felt joy. It was true for Jan when she fought her battle against depression. She felt the vast, dark emptiness of depression, but she couldn’t feel joy. And the feeling of joy has been just as elusive for many, many others who have journeyed through suffering and pain.

But the good news about joy is that it is out there – somewhere – even when we can’t feel it.

Jan and I have found that the ultimate joy, the promise of joy that will never fail, is found in the salvation that Jesus Christ offers us. True joy comes in knowing that God cares enough about me that He has opened the doors of heaven to me. The promise of joy is that someday, no matter what good or bad experiences I go through on this earth, I will live with Jesus in a place where there are no more tears and there is no more suffering.

Because God’s ultimate promise of joy is out there, it is possible to see glimpses of joy – even when we suffer. I am not in any way saying that experiencing joy is easy. To experience the feeling of joy in the midst of acute suffering is very difficult. For example, I couldn’t fix my thoughts on things that would allow me to experience joy because I was so consumed by the suffering itself. But at times I did experience a sense of joy, and it came through the loving care and comfort of others.

Those precious glimpses of joy came through friends who, even though they may not have understood, still allowed me to talk about whatever I needed to talk about. It came through the faces of those who loved me and didn’t beat around the bush but helped me deal with reality. It came through the words of the Bible that were shared with me when I didn’t have the energy to seek them out myself.

When we receive comfort and encouragement from others, we receive a bit of joy. The love, concern, and encouragement of others stands out to me as the clearest reminder of God’s care and concern for me. And this is true for many other people who have endured a time of suffering. So often people say, “I don’t know how I would have gotten through this had it not been for the encouragement of the people around me.” This is just the way the Bible tells us comfort will come. The Bible describes God as “the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God” (2 Corinthians 1:4 NIV).

That comfort is part of the joy Jan and I, and the staff at Outreach of Hope, want to share with you. We know how easily pain and suffering can rob us o joy. Because we discovered the reality of joy in the midst of our personal struggles, we want to share that joy with you. As Christmas, the season of joy, approaches, we hope that you, too, will discover the reality of joy. Our desire is that the stories and insights of others that we share with you through this issue will point your heart toward joy.