Author’s note-
I wrote this essay to describe the life of a young woman, as I saw it. As I thought on the beauty of her life and undertook the task of setting it forth, it seemed more appropriate and compelling to write in first person, assuming her persona. Please note that I did this for literary reasons, not because I presume any power or authority to speak on behalf of the dead. No mortal has that right, and if any did, it would surely belong to people who knew her better than me. This is my interpretation of her life, expressed as I believe she would have it expressed; nothing more, nothing less.
They call me Melody Joy. That is my name. It is the single great lie of my life; a lie which carries the most profound truth of my life. Industrious, striving, and joyful, this is how people see me. This is my mask. This is who I want to be. I am always moving, always changing, always doing. I am always smiling, always laughing, always singing. This is my lie: a lie I desperately want others to believe because I desperately want to believe it myself. It is the lie I wish I was true. But this lie expresses the driving motive of my life more eloquently than anything else ever could. I strive for joy with every fiber of my being. Not the selfish, temporal joy of Earth, but the true joy which comes from Christ, a joy that I could relish myself and impart to others, a joy that springs from the renewed heart. I want to tell my life story, that all may see the beauty in brokenness that is me. My life contains many little stories: stories of actions and interactions. But this is my story: not of what I did, but of who I am. And at the most basic level, I am the paradox that exists between the lie and inner truth of my name. I am Melody Joy; this is my story.
If you are to understand who I am, the lie and the truth, you have to understand that I am not an island. I thrive in community, I need community, I create community, I love community, I become community. I feel your joys, sorrows, hatreds, and loves; I feel them from the depths of my soul because they resonate with my own affections and create the same feelings in me. I don’t know why I am this way, I don’t understand it, but I am. I don’t always know which feelings are my own, and which are reflections of others. But it doesn’t matter: whether they originated within me or outside of me, they are me now; inseparable, indivisible. Sometimes I love this community within, because I can laugh and cry with you with a sincerity that is profoundly real; but sometimes I hate it because it makes me so vulnerable. I don’t have the same armor others have, so I sometimes wear many false faces. Believe me, no one abhors the inherent dishonesty more than me; it’s just easier to hide behind the face you expect to see than to feel your disappointment. Sometimes though, those many, contradictory faces you see are all me, at least the “me” I have become at the moment: it really is who I am. I don’t blame you when you can’t tell the difference, sometimes I can’t either
Community goes both ways, and I always contribute to my community from my own individuality. You know this, I’m sure. I laugh, and others want to laugh too; I cry, and others want to cry too. I can ease the sighing of the lonely and bring real joy to those around me by using this God-given gift as He intends. I love to do this; it brings me more fulfilment than anything else in the world. Making you smile is how I find my smile. My smile is sometimes a lie, but seeing the real joy that I can bring to you through my smile provides me the only real smiles I ever know. I’m sorry for not always using this gift as I should. I’m selfish, and sometimes use it for my own good and not yours. Sometimes I use this to manipulate people and situations. Please don’t be too hard on me, the temptation is so hard to resist sometimes. I want to be happy, and I want all of you to be happy, and sometimes I think I know the best way to achieve this when I really don’t. But I know this, I touched the lives of people around me in ways few ever do. That is a truth that cannot be taken away.
Determined, brave, unstoppable: this is how I present myself to you. Oh, if you only knew the extent of my doubts, fears, and paralysis. I refuse to be a slave to such aspects of my character, so I run through life with manic energy. Is it a lie, or is it honestly striving to be my best self? I don’t know. Maybe it’s both, and neither. Maybe only the paradox is truth. I only know that when I run into the fire with you, I feel a touch of that joy I always seek, and I want more of it. Sometimes I run to far, too fast: I am trying to stay ahead of the stupor of depression that I know is always chasing me. “You need to find a balance,” some will say to me. I agree with you, but I don’t know how. All I know is if I slow down my sorrows will catch up with me, so I run as fast as I can. “There is a better way,” you tell me. I know you are right, but I don’t know what it is. So, I run through life with the vigor of a typhoon, dreading the onset of the omnipresent doldrums. There is much to find fault with in this, I don’t deny it; but one fact remains nonetheless: I ran. Whether I was running because of bravery or fear, I ran through life when others sat still. I made mistakes. I ran into sin and carnality with fervor, but I also ran into love and service with even greater zeal. The lie may have caused me to run, but the run was real, the run was true.
Real joy only comes from trusting and hoping in God. This has never been easy for me. That’s why I strove for joy instead of living in joy. Why? One word: sin. Yes, it’s an ugly word, but I won’t soften it. The sin nature manifests itself in different ways in different people, and I was born with a nature that was prone to despondency. My sin-cursed world gave me many causes for despondency and depression, as the burdens of those around me sank me deeper into hopelessness. My personal sin further enchained me in this pit, keeping me from experiencing the joys of faith and hope. I professed a faith and hope that I was never able to fully realize. Was this a lie? Perhaps, but it was also true. The faithless can cling to faith even more desperately than the satisfied, and the hopeless can reach for hope even more tenaciously than the confident. I wish I had the resting faith that brings joy, but instead I had the faith that cries “I believe, help my unbelief.” I wish I had the tangible hope that brings confidence, but I had to hope in God while all my hope perished from before the Lord. I never experienced the joy of Christ like I should have, but I never stopped seeking after it; refusing to be satisfied with earthly counterfeits. I clung to faith even when plagued with unbelief and looked to hope even when I couldn’t see it; believing in a reality in Christ that I never quite apprehended. My faith and my hope are true because they remain even when sin fills my soul with unbelief and hopelessness. My Jesus is true because the reality of his life can even shine through the broken wreck of my soul. The ending of the story is as paradoxical as the rest.
I took my own life. What, did you really expect me to gloss over this fact? I was not the confident, industrious, joyful person I so wanted to be, and I saw no other way out. The accumulated heartache from those around me, the pressure to help others, the exhaustion from constant running, and the cumulative effects of sin crushed my spirit drove me to this dreadful choice. The lie became too much to bare, and it destroyed me. At least that is what I would be forced to say if that were truly the end of the story, but it is not. Truth triumphs over the lie, and I am that which I was made to be: I am Melody Joy. I saw the inexpressible joy that is in Christ, and I sought after it with fanatic devotion my whole life, rejecting the vain joys of earth. I bore the burdens of my loved ones in ways that others never can hope to do, I had an impact on the deepest affections of countless people, I ran through life with real fervor, and I proved the reality of my Jesus by clinging to him even in the dark. His light shined through my broken and crushed spirit to create something uniquely beautiful, and he used that beauty to glorify himself and refresh his saints. Who is a God like our God? Who but he could cause such beauty to be born from such brokenness? Now, my joy is fully realized. He has made known to me the paths of life; in his presence there is fullness of joy, at his right hand are pleasures forever more. They call me Melody Joy because they thought I was something I am not; but He calls me Melody Joy because he knows my frame, yet He made me to truly be the person I always desired to be. I am Melody Joy. “I am a Christian woman, the child of everlasting joy, through the merits of the bitter passion of Christ.” I am Melody Joy, and I rejoice in Jehovah, I exult in my God, because he adorns his beloved in garments of salvation, in robes of righteousness. He knows my name, and He calls me Melody Joy.
