During our first month my squad mentor (who I am just going to call my friend now because she is 

) Kayla, shared with me a thought that she had been wrestling with. 

This idea, this concept, of living in the BOTH AND. Initially hearing it I was slightly confused. Doesn’t both already mean more than one? So why are you including the AND? 

Per usual, I have 101 questions and my curiosity for more understanding strikes… and she knows this which is a blessing. So without a pause, she took the time to explain more. The BOTH AND, is the full spectrum of emotions, the highs and the lows of them. 

Both joy and mourning. 

Both tragedy and victory.

Both heartache and love. 

Both… AND.

You fill in the blank of what your “BOTH AND” may or may not be. 

When Kayla first told me about this concept; admittedly I thought about it, but left it at that. It was her wrestle, and I stood alongside her in that to support her process and dig. However, as I read more of The Bible, I started to see the overlap of the BOTH AND. Realizing that this wrestle had more of a personal point than I gave it credit for. This led to me sitting, and evaluating the seasons I have walked through in my life. Taking inventory of each of them, and sure enough there it was. The BOTH AND, so this became my wrestle as well. 

One season hit heavier than the others; the loss of my dad. 

I experienced a lot during that time of my life. Loss is the word that many people would label it as, however as more years stretch between the moment he died and where I am now I see it otherwise; both joy and mourning. Taking this time to think back to the hardships immediately place a knot in my throat. The crushing reality that he really is gone. This is where I learned how to silently mourn, and how to deny that I was isolating, but I also learned the love of the Father in a way I never realized I had previously misunderstood. He was not just the joyful times of my life, but He was in the mourning. I could easily see the mourning, but where was the joy Jesus? He has since shown me that the joy came from sitting with my dad days before he died. The joy came from hearing the words of scripture leave his lips without him even realizing. The joy came from the full confirmation that his heart was on fire for Jesus until the very end. The joy came from having a dad like I did, simple as that. 

After hearing the news, I was devastated… wanting to turn every other way than towards the joy of the dad I had. So I did that, but it never valued too much of anything besides depression. In my pity, I turned away from the truth of what my dad’s legacy lived for. For his wife, for his daughters, for encouraging others, for loving God and for so much more. I let the enemy capture the joy, and in that I lived only in the mourning. 

Not the BOTH AND; which is where Jesus invites us to live in.  

Do you see this? Does this makes sense? I want to express and reiterate that even in the midst of a tragedy there is something to sing for, to laugh for, to smile for, to dance for, to LIVE FOR. We mourn and cry because we are separated from something or someone that we love on this Earth. It is hard, it is painful, it is unimaginable some days to comprehend that they are really gone. I am not dismissing that, because I feel it personally. However, I also am refusing to live in that emotion alone. My dad wouldn’t want me to, but also neither does the mighty God! So God invites us, and declares that HE WILL turn our mourning into dancing. 

"You have turned for me my mourning into dancing;
    you have loosed my sackcloth
    and clothed me with gladness"  Psalm 30:11 

"...and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
    instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
    instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
    instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
    a planting of the Lord
    for the display of his splendor. "Isaiah 61:3 

Trust me when I say I am sobbing when I write these words, after comprehending that I was drinking from a mug that read "para mi papa" this past week... but for some reason God wants me to continue to put this on the page. For someone who is struggling to find the joy in the pits of what feels like Hell; this is for YOU. This is me, Dana, telling you that you are allowed to miss whoever you might be mourning, and you are allowed to share stories that make you laugh about them. You are allowed to mourn, and you are allowed to experience joy. 

We get to live here with those we lost, but more importantly we get to live here with Jesus. 

In the BOTH AND. 

xoxo

d

p.s. when writing this blog, on repeat it was this song. I encourage you to take the time to listen to it after reading. Fairest - Upperroom. 

...also, look at that joy <3