For the sake of transparency...let's talk about feeling sad

I keep thinking that I should write a funny post since we have daily moments of hilarity in our home. My red-headed, too-wild-for-words son is a tremendous source of funny material, and that in combination with a spastic dog, a dry-humored husband, and a too-smart-for-her-own-good, sassy daughter give me an overflowing variety of topics to write about. We love to laugh in our house. Laughter is highly valued in our family, and I adore a good blog post that can make me belly-laugh to the point that everyone in the house wants to know what is so funny (because, of course, they want to laugh, too).

But lately, those posts just won't come out.

As a matter of fact, the reason that it has been so long since my last post is because I was holding out for a real knee-slapping post. A real zinger, you know?

But it won't come.

So for the sake of transparency, let's go with that...

Sometimes, I'm just sad.

Things make me sad. They cause me to grieve, to be dissatisfied with the way things are, to mourn things that are lost.

To be very, very clear, I am not depressed! Actually, I am generally a very happy, positive person. We are blessed beyond measure, and if my life on this earth ended tomorrow, I would feel confident that it was a very full life, indeed.

But, sometimes, I'm just sad, and there have been more of those moments in the past year than usual.

There are different kinds of sad.

Sometimes we get sad because we our feelings have been hurt. We were left out, left alone or ignored. It stings, but it seems that most of the time, there's a good explanation, and we can put on our big girl panties and move on.

Sometimes we're sad because one phase of life is ending, and another one is beginning. This can be so bittersweet. I get a little sad at the change of every season when I have to clear out the kids' closet and drawers to make room for the bigger clothes that they will wear in the upcoming season. It's an indication that they'll never be that small again, but also that, by the grace of God, I have kept them alive long enough to see another season.

Sometimes we are grieved for our friends, and sometimes for strangers. It's part of carrying one another's burdens, and is probably the least selfish kind of sadness. There have been so many very sad situations that I have watched sweet friends go through in the past year, and it can be easy to start getting lost inside of the grief of others, but it's also a great opportunity to get outside of one's self and do something for someone else.

And then sometimes we are deeply sad. The kind of sad that can go from grief to rage in a heartbeat. The kind that leaves us asking, "Why?" The kind that, no matter how badly we want to, we cannot talk ourselves out of feeling, and we struggle to mask from others. This kind of sad leaves our eyes puffy, our head aching, stomach churning, and desperate for either the life we had before the sadness, or for the life that is to come if we can just get ourselves together.

At some point in the last year, I have experienced all of these and more, and while I do not like it, I know that it is almost always a precursor to great moments of joy and breakthroughs. Not for everyone, and not all of the time, but speaking for myself, some of my greatest moments of grief and heartache have been followed up by some of the most joyful times of my life.

Lord knows that I am banking on that now.

I am praying for beauty from the ashes...

for at least temporary relief from back to back disappointment...

for curses to turn into blessings...

for redemption of every ugly and unfortunate thing that has happened.

The beauty of having lived through happy and sad times with and without Jesus in my life is that I can honestly say that they are both sweeter with Jesus, hands down. Sweeter because I know that I am not alone, and that this life is just a wink on the timeline of eternity. Before Jesus, there was no hope from the pit. This life was all that I could think about, so spending any amount of time in grief just seemed like such a waste, which drove me even further into grief. Seriously, if anyone ever got their hands on the hundreds of poems I wrote out of hopeless angst, I think that I would crawl under the table and never come out!

To walk through trouble and heartache with Jesus is like walking toward a light off in the distance. You know it's there. You can just see its glimmer up ahead, but to get there, you're going to trip over a few things. You might drop a four letter word or two when you stub your toe, and you're going to wonder if you're ever going to get there without falling in some hole that you can't even see...but you can still see the light. You know it's there, and you know that it will be so nice when you finally get there. That's where I am. Jesus promised, and He's brought me through some pretty dark places before, so I have no reason to think that He won't bring me through again.

He is up to something, and I'm going to just keep walking...