“Stress comes more naturally to us [than joy], and it takes intentional change and obedience to the Spirit to learn to live in joy.”- Holley Gerth, You’re Going to Be Okay
This quote is so true of me. Finding joy in infertility requires tremendous effort for me. I’ve always blamed it on my melancholic, ISTJ personality, but the truth is that sometimes it’s just easier to be stressed out than to be joyful. Sometimes I’m just too tired and too weak to try.
The past few days have been full of struggle and joylessness for me. The burden of a quickly-approaching 3rd IVF cycle is weighing heavily on me. But I’ve been comforted by a song from my childhood stuck in my head. Perhaps you know it from your Sunday School days, too.
The joy of the Lord is my strength (repeat 4x)
If you want joy you must clap for it (repeat 4x)
If you want joy you must sing for it (repeat 4x)
If you want joy you must pray for it (repeat 4x)
I remember singing this song and switching out the verbs for all kinds of silly actions- jumping, skipping, swaying, running, spinning, etc. As a child, this song was simply a fun way to get the wiggles out. But it planted a profound truth in my heart: Sometimes joy requires action.
Perhaps joy will never come naturally, especially in the middle of struggling with infertility. But instead of surrendering to joylessness, we must fight for joy. We must seek after it instead of expecting it to fall in our laps. If we feel we don’t have the strength to seek it out, we must remember strength comes through joy, not after it. In other words, joy provides strength.
This is hard, I know. Infertility wears us down and messes with our minds. Throw in a little Clomid or Lupron and you’ve got the makings of crazy. The good news is that joy doesn’t just give us strength; it gives us Christ’s strength. The weaker we are, the better his strength is perfected in us (2 Cor 12:9).
So dear friends, I hope you’ll join me in fighting for joy throughout all the darkness that infertility can bring.
“…Don’t be dejected and sad, for the joy of the Lord is your strength!”- Nehemiah 8:10 (NLT)
Want to dive deeper into cultivating a sense of joy? I highly recommend the Cultivate Joy / Write the Word Journal from Lara Casey. It contains specially-selected Scriptures on joy and room for you to write them out. There’s also plenty of space for you to journal your thoughts, prayers, or whatever is on your heart.
Looking for the free 31 Days of Prayer During Infertility printable that goes along with this post? Download it here.
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