Wednesday, September 3, 2025

Dear God,

Some days the search for joy is tedious and long.  We may feel joy doesn't exist where we live and move and have our being.  But maybe we need to reconsider our definition of joy.  Is joy just a feel-good proposition?  Is it overflowing happiness?  Or is it something more?

I can recall joyous times on vacation, with family or doing something I really like.  Those all give a modicum of joy.  However, real joy, the deep-down kind offers beautiful things.  The smile or giggle of a small child can bring joy.  A magnificent sunrise can bring joy.  Hope birthed out of despair can bring joy.  

I believe there is a fountain of joy that lives deep within the recesses of the human spirit.  I believe it can overflow at any time, even unexpectedly.  I saw joy a couple of weeks ago in my own backyard.  A young South African woman who had to flee violence, war and constant fear found her way to America.  Going through proper channels to have legal status, she literally left her country, her family and home, job and friends to find peace and joy.  I hired her to help with my yard since my husband fractured two vertebrae and could no longer do it.  While she raked leaves, I watched and listened as she sang and danced.  She was full of joy.  In my own mind I wondered how anyone could have that much joy through so much loss and sorrow, yet, she did.  It was then I realized she had discovered her own deep well and was living there while she worked in a country so far away from home and all she loved.

Help us find

that joy

you tucked

inside us all

as we grew

in our 

mother's womb.

Thank you

for the beauty

and wonder

of joy

deep within.

Thank you

for planting it

with your own

creation hands.

Love, Andrea