To be deeply peaceful – no matter what the circumstances - is something I’ve learned in the last decade or so.  The Lord has worked on the level of fear in my life, I’ve been through excruciating grief, I’ve wrestled with whether I am lovable.  There’s been a lot – and recognizing that I can have deep and abiding and sustaining peace in the midst of those things has been one of the gifts of this journey.  There can be a solid peacefulness that co-exists with intense pain.

Peace comes pretty naturally to me these days.  When something challenges it, I know the steps to regain it.  It takes more than it used to to disturb the peacefulness I feel, and when it does get disturbed it’s not the same struggle to get back there.  Jesus promised us that His peace is different from the world’s peace – and I’ve experienced that.

But I was once challenged to not settle just for peace, but to press on to joy.   This was earlier in my journey and the advice giver acknowledged that after a long season of pain and anguish, he knew that arriving at a place of peace felt really good.  But he encouraged me to press on until I reached joy.  For the joy set before Him, Jesus endured the cross.  (Heb. 12:2)

But what does joy look like in me?  Despite huge amounts of breaking free from it, I’m still shy in most settings.  I don’t have the bubbly personality where joy spills over infectiously.  I’m quieter by nature.  I don’t spontaneously blurt out the things that indicate joy.  Shyness creates unique challenges in this area.  The fear of embarrassment is still a struggle for me.  It seems as if peacefulness suits my personality better than joy does.

But I have this nagging sense that the Lord has more for me.

It’s not that joy is not present.  I do think I have pressed past peace and into joy.  It’s that I don’t know how to make it visible.  I often think that if I could change one thing about myself, it most likely would be this.  I’d like to be more expressive to those around me – especially in the things that indicate joy and delight.  But here I am, still quiet and shy about it.  

A few days ago something caused a blip in my peacefulness and my joy.  It hurt and it was unfair and I spent one evening doing a little bit of grieving.  I brought a handful of people alongside me.  The peace began to flow back in.

And I realized this – the reminder to press on to joy comes automatically these days.  It's become an integral extension of peace.  Whether or not I’m ever able to express it in a way that others can see, I do know that the joy of the Lord is my strength. 

I may live more comfortably in “peace,” but “joy” is also a fruit of the Spirit and I want my life to be characterized by it as well. I sense the Lord asking me to stretch a bit.