The last few weeks have been some of the happiest of my life, albeit sleepless.
Our family welcomed Hazel Ruth into the world, and there is something almost impossible to describe about holding your newborn child for the first time. After months of waiting, wondering, praying, and preparing, suddenly she was here…in my arms.
We heard her cry. We saw her face. We counted fingers and toes. We watched Olivia and Daniel meet their little sister. We brought her home and began figuring out what life looks like as a family of five. There has been overwhelming joy!
And yet, these weeks have also reminded me that joy doesn't put the rest of life on hold.
Even while we experience something wonderful, people we love may be walking through something incredibly painful. And sometimes we ourselves can experience both at once. You can receive wonderful news while grieving someone else's devastating news. You can laugh with your family and still deeply miss someone who should have been there laughing with you. You can be grateful for a new opportunity while still grieving the job you lost. You can celebrate one answered prayer while still wondering why another prayer seems to have gone unanswered.
For some reason, we sometimes think our emotions are supposed to take turns. Either I'm happy, or I'm sad. Either I'm thankful, or I'm grieving. Either I'm trusting God, or I'm hurting.
But the Bible gives us a much more honest picture of what it means to be human. Paul describes himself in 2 Corinthians 6:10 with these words: “As sorrowful yet always rejoicing.” Sorrowful. Yet rejoicing.
While they may seem opposite in our own minds, they are not in Paul's mind. They can coexist. Scripture makes room for both.
Paul regularly describes the Christian life using phrases that almost seem contradictory. In 2 Corinthians 4:8–9 he writes: “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.”
I especially appreciate one word in that passage: perplexed. Paul doesn't say, “We understand why everything happens.” Because the truth is that sometimes we don't. Sometimes something happens, and we are left with questions for which there simply aren't satisfying answers. We can believe wholeheartedly in the sovereignty and goodness of God while still looking at our circumstances and saying, “Lord, I don't understand this.”
Paul makes room for that. Perplexed, but not despairing. Those are two very different things. Perplexity says, “I don't understand what God is doing,” while despair says, “Therefore, I have no hope.” Our faith allows us to say the first without surrendering to the second.
That means knowing what is coming does not require us to pretend the present doesn't hurt. Losing someone you love hurts. Losing a job can hurt. Watching a relationship fall apart hurts. Receiving frightening medical news hurts. Seeing a dream you prayed for disappear hurts.
Joy Doesn't Erase Sorrow—and Sorrow Doesn't Erase Joy! Romans 12:15 says: “Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.”
I have usually thought about that verse as two separate commands for two separate situations. Someone is celebrating? Celebrate with them. Someone is grieving? Grieve with them. But life is rarely that cut and dry. Sometimes rejoicing and weeping happen in the same week. In fact, in my own experience last week, I was holding my precious Hazel and rejoicing in gratitude WHILE weeping for the losses a friend had experienced! Sometimes these seemingly opposite emotions happen in the same family.
And God has given us the capacity to hold both. You can be genuinely thankful for what God has given you without becoming insensitive to what someone else has lost. And you can deeply grieve what has been lost without becoming ungrateful for what God has given you.
One does not cancel the other. That's important because sometimes we feel guilty about joy when someone around us is hurting. I was grateful for the words of my friend, “It's honestly easy to be excited for you even in the midst of our grief. It doesn't take away anything and reminds me of beauty.” Praise God for my friend’s ability to put that into words.
Diminishing God's kindness to us does not lessen someone else's pain. The answer isn't to stop rejoicing. It's to allow our hearts to become large enough to do both.
I’m so thankful that the Gospel gives us language for this! In many ways, the Christian life is lived in this tension. We look around and know something is terribly wrong with this world. Sin has brought suffering, sickness, brokenness, injustice, and death. We don't have to pretend otherwise. But we also know something else.
Christ has come.
Jesus entered our broken world, bore our sin, died, and rose again. Death is defeated, even though we still experience it. Christ's kingdom has come, even though we still wait for its fullness. It’s that promise of “right now and yet to come.” That's why Paul can describe Christians as “sorrowful yet always rejoicing.” Our sorrow is very real.
But it isn't hopeless. Paul tells believers in 1 Thessalonians 4:13 that Christians grieve, but “not as the rest do who have no hope.” Notice what he doesn't say. He doesn't say Christians don't grieve. We absolutely do! The difference is that grief is not the only thing we know to be true.
We know resurrection is coming! We know Christ is victorious. We know death will not have the final word. We know Revelation 21 promises a day when God Himself will wipe away every tear and death, mourning, crying, and pain will be no more.
Until then, tears and joy sometimes occupy the same heart. Maybe the challenge is to stop feeling like we have to resolve the tension.
When God gives you something beautiful, enjoy it. Laugh. Celebrate. Take the picture. Hold the baby a little longer. Thank God for His kindness.
And when something hurts, don't rush past that either. Cry. Lament. Tell God you're confused. Miss the person you lost. Acknowledge the disappointment. Let someone sit beside you when you don't have words.
Christian maturity isn't learning to replace sadness with happiness as quickly as possible. It is learning to bring all of it before God. And maybe that's something I am learning in this season.
I can hold my daughter and be overwhelmed by gratitude for the gift God has given our family. And I can also look around and recognize that people I deeply love are carrying things I wish I could take away from them.
I don't have to choose between those emotions. Neither do you.
Maybe today you are experiencing one of the sweetest seasons of your life. Thank God for it. Enjoy His kindness without guilt.
Maybe today you are barely keeping it together. Bring that pain honestly before Him. You don't have to pretend to be okay to be faithful.
Or maybe, like many of us, you're somewhere in between. Laughing one moment. Crying another. Grateful for one thing. Heartbroken over another.
Sometimes that is simply what it means to live faithfully in a world where Christ has already won the victory, but we are still waiting to see everything made new.
For now, we may be sorrowful, yet always rejoicing. But a day is coming when those two emotions will finally separate.
Sorrow will end. And joy will remain. Until then, we live in the tension, and rightly so.