Relational Joy

Last night we did an “overnight” with our grandkids, Eden and Edison.  Edison is just 4 months old, so this was a new experience to get and keep him asleep at night, not always successful!  Even though I’m exhausted, I love the time I have with them!

There was a really special moment when Eden, who is 3, was dancing in front of Edison and making him laugh.  It was amazing to see the joy they both were experiencing together.  This is what relational joy is meant to be. 

Yes, we can laugh at jokes or funny videos, but it is not the same in our brain as relational joy that is face to face.  It has a powerful impact on both parties, creating pathways of joy in our brain and expanding our joy capacity.

The good thing about joy capacity is that it can always grow.  This is what we want to be:  a high-joy community, even though most of us have experienced horrible traumas.  The reality is that the more we can experience relational joy, the more we will be able to face our trauma in a healthy way.  This is why we have a focus on community.  Yes, we talk about hard things, but we also can experience being delighted to be together and experience joy that transforms our lives.  This is necessary for us to be able to face hard things.  We can only deal with our traumas at the pace that we have joy capacity to handle it. 

We can also experience relational joy with God.  This is not a cognitive exercise of knowing He loves us, but experiencing seeing, hearing, feeling, sensing  His love, compassion, grace and His joy to be with us.  I hope you know that!  It is not just because He is God and “has to” love us.  It is because we are His great joy!   Zep 3:17 NKJV “The LORD your God in your midst, The Mighty One, will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing."

Trauma often blocks our ability to see, sense, hear and feel love and joy from God and from others.  So we take this step by step.  As we see the joy that others genuinely have in us and come to believe that we are worth it, we can more easily receive from God. 

If you are not already part of our community, we have a new Transformations group starting soon where we will go into more detail on relational joy.  I hope you will join us!