Writings of a Beholder 🌿 2.23.24
When Love Meets Foreboding Joy
I remember when I first heard the term ‘foreboding joy’.
It was around a year ago during one of my monthly sessions with my spiritual director and I was describing to her that although I feel like I have more of a capacity for joy in my life, I can’t help but consistently wait for the other shoe to fall. As we unpacked this in more depth, I realized that this feeling has followed me around for most of my life, but I was just becoming aware of it in that particular season.
My spiritual director explained to me that I suffer from what social worker, speaker, and researcher, Brene Brown, defines as foreboding joy.
In her book, Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts., Brown gives further insight into this emotion. She writes,
“When we feel joy, it is a place of incredible vulnerability — it’s beauty and fragility and deep gratitude and impermanence all wrapped up in one experience. When we can’t tolerate that level of vulnerability, joy actually becomes foreboding, and we immediately move to self-protection. It’s as if we grab vulnerability by the shoulders and say, “You will not catch me off guard. You will not sucker-punch me with pain. I will be prepared and ready for you.”
I resonate so deeply with Brene’s explanation of this experience. For me, foreboding joy often hits me at the most joyful and content moments in my day or life. I could be walking with my husband on a warm, sunny day, present and alive in the moment and grateful just to be there and suddenly loneliness or fear will strike out of nowhere.
I could be in a season of harvest after months of wintering, joy blooming, and randomly one day I’ll wake up with what feels like a weight on my chest the size of Texas with absolutely no explanation for it and zero evidence pointing to the end of the world.
It’s been about a year since I named this constant struggle of mine with my spiritual director for the first time, and it’s been a year of learning how to pivot from thinking the other shoe will always fall to the Lord is good and I can trust that I am cared for and safe, no matter what happens — and because of that, I can rest and receive the joy He wants to give me.
Well, that was all fine and dandy until I found out I was expecting my first baby.
Since then, foreboding joy has reared her ugly, nasty head again and again and I admit that the struggle with it has never been more challenging or real than it is in this season of my life. I’ve been given such a precious gift — an invitation to fully enter into the joy of it — and I’ve found myself waiting for it to somehow completely fall apart. I have felt the most vulnerable and out of control as I ever have, and honestly, it scares me silly.
Currently, we find ourselves 9 days into the season of Lent — a 40-day liturgical season often marked by solemnity, grief, fasting, repentance, self-examination, and prayer. During Lent, we remember Jesus’ 40 days spent fasting in the wilderness before the launch of His ministry as well as His journey toward the cross and His crucifixion.
A common practice during the season of Lent is to fast or give up something that gets in the way of your relationship with God for the 40-day season. But this year, as I step into the Lenten season — all my fears and worries rising up like bile in my throat — my one prayer is that joy will become my greatest weapon.
Foreboding joy, in my opinion, is an unfortunate part of the human experience. We don’t like to be vulnerable or out of control, so the second we become very aware that we are both of those things, we tend to grapple with crisis management even if there’s no crisis yet to manage.
At least, this is my Modus Operandi – and how I’ve been struggling to operate in this season of my life.
So as I pay attention to my own foreboding joy and the way I feel it leaking happiness right from this season of celebration, I’ve decided to make joy a practice in this Lenten season. I want to grow this spiritual fruit, and I know the only way I can do that is if I take every fear and worry to the cross – to the feet of my Jesus.
Foreboding joy often makes me want to run and hide, and that’s usually what I do, locking up my fears and keeping them to myself afraid that they might come true. But this isolates me from God and others and puts me in a place where shame has room to grow, and I’m tired of living that way. So instead of ignoring my vulnerability – locking it up – I’ve decided to let it show. I’ve decided to learn how to let Jesus meet me in this place of vulnerability and worry so that these fears have a place to rest and be transformed.
So that these fears have an opportunity to be met with Love.
I’m learning this is the only way that true, lasting joy can grow. Because joy is something that has to grow, and things that grow require intentionality and tender care, and Who better to trust with this fruit than the creator of joy Himself? Than Love Himself? Love is the only answer capable of changing fear’s mind, and it says so right there in the good Word of God.
“There is no fear in love [dread does not exist]. But perfect (complete, full-grown) love drives out fear, because fear involves [the expectation of divine] punishment, so the one who is afraid [of God’s judgment] is not perfected in love [has not grown into a sufficient understanding of God’s love].”
1 John 4:18 AMP
Fear involves the expectation of punishment, and this season of my life has highlighted that same ugly expectation I have of God. It’s stripped me of everything I thought I believed about Him and made me realize that I still don’t totally trust that He’s good all the time, even though I so desperately want to. Even though I know in my core that He truly is.
This, too, is an unfortunate part of the human experience, and I believe He understands this and only meets me in this struggle with kindness and grace. I know this to be true because each time I approach Him with my fears — even if my fear involves Who He is or isn’t — I’m only ever met with love, patience, and compassion. Never scolding, correcting, or chastising and it has stunned and shocked me every time, this gentleness in which He extends to me even when I feel undeserving of it.
Pregnancy — and all the joy, fear, and anxiety that comes with it — is revealing to me the true heart of God and just how sweet and tender He is. That alone has melted a lot of my worries as I realize He can be trusted because He’s good, gentle, and capable.
I’m not really sure how this practice of joy is going to play out during these next weeks of Lent, but I’m taking one day at a time, allowing the Holy Spirit to reshape my perspective on what it truly means to be loved by God.
And letting that Love shape and heal me.
With you on the journey,
Celia
Life Lately
A Breath Prayer for Your Weekend
Inhale: In Your presence.
Exhale: Is abundant joy.
(adapted from Psalm 16:11, CSB)
*If you’d like to learn more about the practice of breath prayer, download this complete digital guide to practicing breath prayer.
Resources & Good Things to Pick Up
My mom is an ovarian cancer survivor who decided to create an encouraging planner for those walking through their cancer journey. It would also be a life-giving tool for caregivers and loved ones walking beside their cancer warrior. The ‘For Such a Time as This’ planner is officially available for purchase now here: Quiet Hope Co.
My Etsy shop, The Beholding Co., offers contemplative resources to help you slow down, seek still moments, and behold God’s presence with you in the everyday. Purchase some breath prayer cards, a Lectio Divina bookmark, and more.
Grab a copy of my Bible study, You Are Beloved: a 21-day study on how to root your identity in the love of God, over on Amazon. If you’d like a free 3-day sample of the study, reply to this email and I’ll send it right over!
My friend and licensed spiritual director, Kari Bartkus, offers an 8-week journaling program for those who want to process their grief and trauma with God within the safety of blank journal pages. I’ve completed the program myself and can say confidently that it was incredibly impactful and healing: Journal Gently
An Invitation to Pause & Reflect
A regular practice of reflection helps us recognize what’s going on beneath the surface of our souls so we can name it in the Lord’s presence. Because as we learn to name what we feel, what we need, and what we long for, we’re also learning to discern the Spirit’s sweet, gentle voice within our hearts and lives.
Take a few moments today or this weekend to journal or contemplate with the Holy Spirit the following question(s) or prompt(s):
Do you ever notice foreboding joy making itself present in your life? If so, when do you notice it happening the most?
What do you believe to be true about God? Why?
