Promises from God don’t always come in the neat little package we sometimes expect of them.
Sometimes they come in so much more.
It has been over a year ago that I remember hearing from God that He was going to send me joy.
I always expected to receive that promise in a tidy little neatly wrapped box labeled “Joy” where I would magically be healed of all my mental anguishes and life would carry on all happiness and sunshine in a way that it had not for a while.
Being more realistic, I didn’t actually expect that level of problem-free perfection, just really that any of my pain would end and life would carry on again more like how it had before the darkness had set back in.
What I didn’t expect in my neat and tidy little packaged way of thinking was all the true joy that would really be added to me.
It wasn’t just a taking away of something unpleasant to make life seem better, but a true adding of more. More than I could have ever hoped for or expected.
This Joy came hard and fast, screaming into the world and blew my life and expectations completely out of the water. All that I ever could have imagined this promise to be was put to shame when I first heard the sound of pure, true Joy.
Though a child was a true answered prayer of mine, I still expected the promise of Joy I had received to do more with myself, mentally. Though I was told that God said this child would bring us abundant joy, I had no idea.
Upon actually receiving what I now know is the true promise of Joy from God was a true life changing experience.
As soon as I heard the sound of Rhett’s first cry, I lost it. It was like a great dam had burst and the tears started flowing uncontrollably. Looking back on that moment almost two months ago, I know that was the moment when Joy came to stay.
All this time I had expected the promise to be more of a “taking away of the bad” than an “adding of the good.”
Rhett hasn’t been able to take away the difficulty of everything that has gone on this year. He hasn’t been able to spare me the pain of childbirth and stop all of the bad things happening in the world.
He hasn’t been able to take those things away. But just by him being added unto us, he’s made it all seem nonexistent.
His existence is greater of an adding than I ever could have hoped for a taking away of. For the first time in so long, I can’t even recall how the darkness felt. Because though he couldn’t take the bad away, Rhett’s existence is such pure joy that I can’t see anything else.
With each new cry, rising and falling of his chest, and wonder-filled expression upon taking in this new world around him, he brings me further from where I was and closer to where I have always wanted to be.
I’m always overcome with wonder at each new glance at him and all he has already added to our lives in almost two short months. How such a tiny little soul could already burn so bright and influence those around him so much. The Joy that just seems to overflow from him, that he now shares with us everyday. That he has given to me, promised from God.
It wasn’t at all the neat and tidy easy little promise I expected. It was a huge, messy whirlwind of a promise that has taken every fiber of my being and wrapped it around it’s tiny little fingers, completely in love.
Joy has truly been added unto me, completely changing my life. This Joy is the most absolutely worth it promise that I have ever received, and he will call me mommy.
