Sunday, May 29, 2022

Dear God,

What is joy really?  Is it a sudden burst of happiness?  Is it a temporary ecstasy? 

All through life we look for happiness.  We even tell our children that we want them to be happy but what are we really saying to them?  Search for happiness and life will be good?  If that is the ultimate of what we want for them and ourselves, then we and they are never going to have a truly fulfilling life.  Why want a cheap substitute for joy for our loved ones or ourselves?

There is a dramatic difference between joy and happiness!  Happiness is something we can acquire in the moment, ie a funny story, being silly with someone, exchanging gifts and so on.  Happiness happens, gives us an adrenaline rush and then it is over.  

But joy, joy is not an external happening.  We do not have to look outside ourselves for joy.  Joy is part of our genetic makeup that comes from the moment you envisioned us, that holy time when you touched us even before our parents touched each other.  You whispered your love into being and at some point our human body caught up with your word that makes all things become flesh.  What that means is that joy came before us.  It claims us and continues in us for all time.  Even when death claims our body, joy still resonates in the cosmos.

When we connect with your joy in a visceral way, we are made new or we are healed or transformed.  All of us, body, mind, soul and spirit are invigorated with the divine stuff of eternity.  Even in moments of tragedy, sorrow or loss, joy is at work within us to cool and calm and give life.

Holy God,

thank you

for being

joy itself.

Thank you

for equipping us

with a part

of yourself.

Why would

it be otherwise?

Love always, Andrea