Penance or Joy?

So this is the first week of Lent in the Orthodox Church which means the whole week is full of services. It is also a time of penance - of remembering our sinfulness - and repeatedly asking for the mercy of God on us. In the spirit of Lent, we are to carry out the somber tone of the services into the rest of our lives with us. Here is where I must not understand what joy is. When I think of somber, I think sad faces. Or certainly, not happy faces.

One of my fears of becoming Orthodox has been that I will be required to let go of the joy that I believe I have. I have been told that if it is true joy, it will last. And if it does not last, it was not true joy to begin with. Okay, I get that. But what I don't get is how do I be penitent with a smile on my face? Or even with one in my heart? Maybe I'm just too Protestant and believe that I truly am a saint instead of living knowing I'm a sinner.

On a side note (kind of), during the service tonight we do prostrations (kneel down and touch our head to the floor). My kids seem to get a kick out of this part of the service. I don't think they really get it, but....*shrug*..... It doesn't seem to matter where they are, when they hear "Have mercy on me, Oh God. Have mercy on me" they would run from whatever they were doing to throw themselves down onto the floor by us. One time they just about collided and did it right where I was supposed to kneel down. Now, this was not the appropriate way to do prostrations, but what was even more inappropriate was that I just about bust a gut laughing. It was hilarious. Now, to start guffawing in the middle of the Cannon of St. Andrew would have been inappropriate, so I managed to keep it stifled. So was it wrong to see humour in the middle of a service where we state over and over again how we tend to fall into sinfulness no matter how hard we try? Granted, at that moment I wasn't hearing the chanter - I was too busy telling my kids that they better not do that again. But it was still funny.

I'm still wondering how appropriate it was, too, that during the forgiveness service I had a grin on my face. I was expecting a flood of tears, and instead had a silly grin. Go figure.

I'm afraid I didn't really continue the story of the journey towards Orthodoxy tonight. But I'm going to head to bed 'cuz I'm still sick and need to get some rest.