I was lying on my laundry room floor wailing, hyperventilating and basically beating my countdown into the nearby wall the day God taught me about real joy. I remember it specifically, because I was the walking, breathing antithesis of joy that day. July 26^th, 2006 — the day my husband’s unit was extended for four months in Iraq, just one week shy of his anticipated reunion after a year at war. The day I thought I would never know joy again — not for four more months, anyway.

             It’s ironic that, on one of the worst and unhappiest days of my life, God would choose to teach me about a word that means “keen pleasure or elation.”

            Since my college days, my favorite Bible verse has always been James 1:2-3: “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, when you experience trials of many kinds, because the testing of your faith produces perseverance.”

But lying there on that cold linoleum floor, I just couldn’t bring myself to consider it “pure joy.” After 12 months apart, my husband was being kept in Iraq for four additional months. I’d already purchased the dress, highlighted the hair, hung the banners and booked the block leave cruise — how could I possibly consider a delayed reunion and four more months without the love of my life “pure joy”?

            Three bawling breakdowns, two godly friends and one week later, I remembered how; I remembered that my happiness was not the same thing as my joy.

            Although we as Americans tend to equate our happiness with our joy, I’ve discovered in my brief time on this planet that they are in fact distinctly different. Happiness is a response to a stimulus. When my husband tells me he loves me, I am happy. When my husband makes me breakfast in bed, I am happy. When my husband surprises me with a week-long, all-expenses paid trip to Hawaii and plans for us to stay in the Hale Koa the week he returns from 16 months at war and books our plane tickets and arranges for my parents to take our son for the week and buys me a new outfit to wear for our first romantic dinner on the beach by candlelight, I am happy (not that I’m hinting, of course).

But happiness is not the normal response of a healthy, loving couple to spending 12 months (and then 16) on opposite sides of the world. It’s just not. No woman wakes up in the morning and says, “Gee, I hope my husband deploys today! That would make me so happy.” If she does, she’s got bigger issues than deployment on her plate. Happiness is just not the natural response of a couple to facing extended deployment.

But joy can be.

That’s because joy is a choice. While happiness is a response, joy is a choice. I might not be happy that my husband deploys to foreign countries for 16 months at a time, but I can be joyful in that trial. I might not be happy that a loved one has been diagnosed with breast cancer, but I can choose joy even in the midst of that situation. That’s because joy is a deliberate decision to respond to a situation with a fresh perspective. Joy is a commitment to viewing a trial in a new light — not as a trial to endure, but as an opportunity to grow. Joy is a decision to look on the bright side, to look on the meaningful side, to seek out and search out the ways this trial might be used to benefit, encourage and impact others. It’s a decision to deliberately use life circumstances to gain compassion for others experiencing similar trials, and to use that compassion as a motivator to help change the world. Just like Jesus Christ.

Joy is a commitment to viewing the trial through Jesus’ eyes.

Happy people need things in their life to make them happy — cars, houses, children, husbands at home. But joyful people can be “happy” even when they have nothing and no one there to share their joy with. That’s because their joy does not depend on their surroundings, their families or their possessions; it depends on their perspective. It depends on Christ alone.

That’s the revelation that hit me, anyway, one week into my extended deployment, when I realized that I had a choice: I could choose bitterness in the face of this trial, or I could choose joy. Either way, I had to endure the extension. And with Christ, I knew I could not just endure it, but overcome it with joy, because I could do all things through Christ who strengthened me (Philippians 4:13).

What a difference that simple choice made.

When I called on Christ to help me “choose joy” in the midst of difficult circumstances, my world began to change. I began to view my trials not as obstacles, but as opportunities. I began to look for ways I might grow through this trial — for ways I might use the sacrifice Christ was calling me to make to grow closer to His character, to grow closer to His kingdom.

When I chose joy in the face of my last-minute deployment extension (after 5.2 million objections and a fist fight with God, of course), I gave my husband peace of mind. When I gave my husband peace of mind, he was able to focus on the job at hand. When he focused on the job at hand, he was able to provide medical care for numerous hurt Americans and Iraqis alike. When he provides medical care for those in traumatic situations, he changes the world, one person at a time.

And all because I chose joy during one deployment extension.

so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” - Romans 15:13

Michelle Cuthrell