Every time I pushed my one-year-old’s stroller outside our home at Shi Fan Da Xue, I felt like we had become our own parade. My light skinned, blond-haired baby laughed and smiled as fascinated strangers pointed and waved. My son was such a magnet, it was not uncommon for a crowd to spontaneously form around us. 

It was also not uncommon for me to have a scowl on my face.  

Then one day it hit me: My son was a joy giver, and I was the opposite.  

My introvertedness longed to blend in, but that could never happen in East Asia. Some days, I wanted to slip out the front door of the Foreign Students/Teachers building unnoticed, but we lived in what felt like a glass bowl. The old men at the front desk constantly asked where I was going and wondered out loud why my baby had been crying for “half a day.”  

I wondered to myself: What would it take for me to become more joyful?  

With teeth-clenched determination, I resolved that while I could not change my environment, I would do everything I could to change my attitude.  

In her book I Shouldn’t Feel This Way, Dr. Alison Cook identifies common messages we hold about faith, and offers ways of reframing. She writes, “Passages like James 1:2 can be taken out of context and misinterpreted as suggesting that you should always feel happy. This counterfeit message encourages a false version of joy. The truth is that joy is a complex emotion intimately linked with experiences of sadness, grief, and pain.”  

As a new mom in a new land, I often felt I *should* be different. More extroverted. More hospitable. More flexible. More patient. I wanted to be able to flip an internal switch and naturally become a smiling joy giver just like my son. I wished I could *turn off* feeling frustrated, lonely, disconnected, and misunderstood. 

But I’m learning now, as a grandma, about the both/and that Dr. Alison writes about: 

“Walking by faith…involves trusting God and honoring the way you really feel. 

You can have faith and feel scared, confused, or uncertain. 

You can trust God and experience anger, disappointment, or doubt. 

You can follow Jesus and be uncertain how to apply his teachings.” 

She concludes that “true faith is the work of constantly reconciling what’s impossibly hard with a hope in what’s unfathomably good and beautiful.”  

Teeth unclenched, I have now resolved that I will no longer say, “I should be joyful.” Instead, I believe that God is inviting me to bring all of my emotions and concerns to Him with trust that He will both hold me and help me to navigate. 

What is His invitation for you?