John 16:21 (ESV)
21 When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world.
21 When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world.
Yesterday, April 10th, at 6:30 central time, our daughter delivered twin boys, Joel Elliott (on left) and Simeon John (right). Both were nearly 6 lbs, and boys and Mom are doing fine.
When Lindsay announced last Fall that she was pregnant with twins a second time, we all were pleasantly shocked. Lindsay was delighted to be carrying twins a second time. The older twins, Raewyn and Theo are now almost 3 1/2 yrs old. I'm not sure how were going to designate the two sets of twins. Being a twin myself all sorts of names are cast at two - "the twins", "the boys", and one I remember all to well - "you boys".
Perhaps we'll just resort to the names - I know I preferred Elliott to other sorts of renditions.
I referred to the verse in John 16, because it's a reminder that with joy comes a certain amount of non-joy. Joy is that great mixture of surprise and mystery that leaves you saying "Wow" - even if you knew it was coming. It is a gift of God and comes in waves, often mysteriously appearing at times when it's not apparent it would.
C. S. Lewis wrote about this in his book "Surprised by Joy". I quote a small portion here:
"As I stood beside a flower currant bush on a summer day there suddenly arose in me without warning, and as if from a depth not of years, but of centuries, the memory of that earlier morning at the Old house when my brother had brought his toy garden into the nursery. It is difficult to find words strong enough for the sensation which came over me; "enormous bliss" is near it. It was a sensation, a desire, but of what?...Before I knew what I desired, the desire was gone, the whole thing a glimpse...withdrawn, the world turned common again, only stirred by a longing for the longing that had just occurred and now ceased.
In a sense the central story of life is about nothing else...the quality common is that of an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction.
I call it JOY..something sharply distinguished from happiness or pleasure.
Joy (in my sense) has indeed one characteristic and only one in common with them; the fact that anyone who has experienced it will want it again...I doubt whether anyone who has tasted it would ever, if both were in his power, exchange it for all the pleasures in the world. But then Joy is never in our power, and pleaure often is."
- C.S. Lewis in Surprised by Joy
"As I stood beside a flower currant bush on a summer day there suddenly arose in me without warning, and as if from a depth not of years, but of centuries, the memory of that earlier morning at the Old house when my brother had brought his toy garden into the nursery. It is difficult to find words strong enough for the sensation which came over me; "enormous bliss" is near it. It was a sensation, a desire, but of what?...Before I knew what I desired, the desire was gone, the whole thing a glimpse...withdrawn, the world turned common again, only stirred by a longing for the longing that had just occurred and now ceased.
In a sense the central story of life is about nothing else...the quality common is that of an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction.
I call it JOY..something sharply distinguished from happiness or pleasure.
Joy (in my sense) has indeed one characteristic and only one in common with them; the fact that anyone who has experienced it will want it again...I doubt whether anyone who has tasted it would ever, if both were in his power, exchange it for all the pleasures in the world. But then Joy is never in our power, and pleaure often is."
- C.S. Lewis in Surprised by Joy
Yesterday was a "Joyful" day in our household. It was a joyful day in Bristol, England. It was a joyful day in households all over the world...that's the nature of Birth...you celebrate the Joy and recognize the one-time feeling you wished would stay. But that is what makes Joy so special.
Peace
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