Milestones, Reflections, and Gratefulness

Hello faithful family, friends, and followers and welcome to this special occasion update. Last Saturday Joy celebrated a milestone birthday, one in which I will follow her shortly. Finding ourselves now at the 70 year mark, causes us to reflect on expectations and assumptions, past and present, of where we thought we would be at this stage of life.

Well, we are certainly not where we thought we would be when we retired in 2022 or even at the start of last year. But here we are in a new reality. A reality, when all is considered, that reminds me of an old saying, “It’s not good, it’s not bad, it’s just different.” Now let me be perfectly clear, the accident was bad, unequivocally, it was a senseless incident caused by a distracted young driver with bad brakes and no liability insurance and was the ultimate in cruel and evil absurdity. But that said, I can honestly report, that as we have navigated the last 20 months or so, even with permanent and lingering injury, it has proven more different from our expectations than objectively good or bad with its own set of unique blessings and life experiences.

Coming through an event like we experienced last year, resets everything you thought was true, reliable, fixed, dependable, comfortable, and predictable. Being 1,300 miles away from home with nothing but a suitcase and dependent on total strangers, in unfamiliar surroundings, with untested clinical resources, and competing systems of potential reimbursement for astronomical medical expenses, leaves one in a state of, if I may say without sounding overly dramatic, existential crisis. Yet still, as I’ve share many times before, in the midst of that bizarre state of crisis, there was also an undeniable presence of God, his Holy Spirit, and a peace that truly passed understanding. It makes all the more real this week’s verses we want to share with you from the apostle Paul in 2nd Corinthians when he writes:

“That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.”

The expectations we had for life in our 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s, are unalterably changed, but that doesn’t mean our “new normal” cannot be a life of true joy and meaningful experiences despite the physical, cognitive, and emotional challenges we are dealing with. I think Brené Brown’s research on joy and gratitude does a wonderful job of explaining how we can hold joy in the midst of pain and loss and be genuinely grateful for the grace and mercy God has shown us through this trial.

In her book, Daring Greatly, Brown writes: “Every research participant who spoke about the ability to stay open to joy also talked about the importance of practicing gratitude. This pattern of association was so thoroughly prevalent in the data that I made a commitment as a researcher not to talk about joy without talking about gratitude. It wasn’t just the relationship between joy and gratitude that took me by surprise. I was also startled by the fact that research participants consistently described both joyfulness and gratitude as spiritual practices that were bound to a belief in human connectedness and a power greater than us. Their stories and descriptions expanded on this, pointing to a clear distinction between happiness and joy. Participants described happiness as an emotion that’s connected to circumstances, and they described joy as a spiritual way of engaging with the world that’s connected to practicing gratitude.”

That last sentence, “happiness is an emotion that’s connected to circumstances, and joy is a spiritual way of engaging with the world that’s connected to practicing gratitude,” is especially meaningful and relevant for me. Because we are in no way “happy” about the accident and tragedy that happened to us, but can be genuinely “grateful” and as a result, genuinely “joyful,” in the grace and mercy God has shown us through the many miracles displayed in Joy’s healing and recovery to date. I know you’re probably tired of hearing it, but as I’ve shared many times, Joy could be dead, she could be permanently in a coma, she could be permanently paralyzed, blind, deaf, dependent on a feeding tube, bedridden, in a nursing home. But she’s not. She’s walking, talking, knitting, crocheting, sewing, loving, laughing, and doing so much more than we ever thought possible, ever dreamed or imagined at the time of the accident.

So here we are, entering our 70’s. Personally I’m not sure I’ve progressed much beyond about age 12 or so, but nonetheless, I/we are entering new territory. I am so thankful to still have my Joy with me because we came oh so close to losing her. I thank God, I thank our family, I thank our friends, and all of you, many of whom I have never met, for your faithful support, prayers, and encouragement which has held us and carried us over these intervening months.

Our happiness day to day, comes and goes, but our joy and gratitude remains regardless of our present circumstances. So we leave you with the challenge of considering all that you can be grateful for today so that you too may experience the joy found in genuine gratefulness for the grace and mercy you have been shown.