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Day 19 - Joy in the In Between


That phrase makes me roll my eyes sometimes. Joy in the in between. It feels like a quick way to brush off the troubles you are living amidst and force yourself to just "be happy" instead. 

But, I think I am missing some of the sentiment of the phrase when I let my jaded heart get in the way. 

When I look back at pictures from the days between Jack's second surgery and when his soul left this earth, I do see joy. I see the faces of my family members who came to see him for the first time. Like my grandparents meeting their first great grandchild. My friends coming to swoon over him even with all of his tubes and unable to hold him. I see photos of us with Jack, holding his hand, enjoying every moment we had with him knowing it was a gift, a miracle. 

There was pain and sorrow during those days, of course. But essentially joy in the in between is life. We are living right now in the "not yet." We live among pain and sorrow daily (often not as grave in severity) and yet we are to be hopeful. We, as Christians, hope and wait expectantly for the day we go home to be with Jesus for eternity. We are given mercy and grace and joy along the way. The bible is flooded with verses about waiting on the Lord, God meeting people in the waiting - in the in between. 

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