Tuesday, March 18, 2025

That Your Joy May Be Full

Read: James 5:13-20

In looking back on what I had written for GPUMC’s beloved book of Lenten devotions the last two years, I was focused on sudden loss, grief, and “Walking the Mourner’s Path.”

While we all know deep in our souls that there is no timeline for our sadness, I did learn at the grief workshop I attended a year ago with Pastor David and Carolyn Barth at Christ Church in Grosse Pointe, that inviting Christ in to be a part of the pain is central to our healing, so that you can transform your grief into joyful living.

I have really focused on that in 2024, and have become a prayer “warrior,” with the help and support of our Tuesday night ladies’ Bible study.

Praying for each other and those needing prayer in our lives is a central part of our weekly study of the scripture from our Sundays and special days 2025 calendar.

In 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, we are told to “Rejoice always and pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” And we do just that when we meet in person, and in our group texts throughout the week.

Taking a break from the liturgy calendar during the summer months, we met in our beautiful Memorial garden for a book study on “Choose Joy,” by Kay Warren.

The wife of pastor Rick Warren, in her book Kay shares the devastation of losing a son to suicide, and her path back to experiencing joy.

“The only thing that would allow me to survive the loss of my son was what I knew and believed about God and joy,” says Kay.

She tells us that in Jesus becoming the savior of the world he would become a man of sorrows, but in his essence, his unchanging nature, he was a man of joy. I just love that!

Kay writes that Jesus tells us in John 15:11 that “these things I have spoken to you, that my joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.”

I do feel that 2024 has been filled with moments of hope and joy, from our firstborn son and “baby girl” getting engaged on the same day in April, to time spent with our younger son, his wife and our three-year-old granddaughter. Pure Joy!

Although it has been a bit harder for our Tuesday night prayer warriors to gather during the last few months, I know that we are still praying without ceasing; and as we read each week in our prayer list email, Romans 8:26 tells us that the Holy Spirit “helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.”

As we celebrate our greatest role model for both sorrow and joy, Jesus Christ, during this season of Lent, I truly believe that our faith, hope, and joy in Jesus are alive and well at GPUMC in 2025!

Amy Sanford