Greetings Dear Reader,
I often wonder if we know what joy is. It is not happiness. It transcends that feeling. I wish the framers of the Declaration of Independence had thought of the pursuit of joy as more important than happiness. Then again, perhaps they are correct.
Happiness is elusive. It has to be maintained via external sources and is subject to circumstance. It has to be pursued. Joy, however, is there. It is a choice that is ever present for us. It is possible to find joy even in dire circumstances where happiness has long left us wondering if it was ever there.
As a society, we fail to consider that joy is always available to us. It is always possible to find joy in our journey even when the path may be filled with pain and sorrow. This may sound counter-intuitive but it is not. Happiness is circumstantial and joy is constantly there.
Our joy is supposed to be rooted in love. If we turn our hearts toward love in every circumstance, in every moment, then we can have joy even in the direst situations. The most painful circumstances in my life right now are unhappy but because I am determined to love and see the love of Christ in those circumstances, there is still joy available to me.
If I pursue happiness with a heart centered on the joy of love then it is easier to find and far less fleeting. The joy in our journey is based on the love we carry in our hearts, not in the precipitating events around us. I feel no happiness when someone I love dies. I feel great joy at their reaching the clearing at the end of the path, at their arrival in that Undiscovered Country.
Tomorrow marks a day where some of my deepest sorrow is rooted. It is also a source of joy for me as it gives me something to anticipate as I journey toward an understanding of how the Father works out sorrow so that it becomes love and joy. I do not need the answers to understand that joy is possible now and can abide in the heart always.
This attitude yields peace and stability. It is not a platitude when I say that the Father knows what he is doing. It is not puerile when I express that the love of God sustains me so that I can work at being more loving, kinder, and finding joy in the journey no matter my circumstance. My heart had forgotten this and turned toward other things to try and find happiness.
Through great loss and pain came the reminder that the joy I need is found in Christ alone. It is in seeing you, Dear Reader, through the love he wishes me to have for everyone. It is given life through choosing to obey the command to love in every circumstance. It is in obedience to love that joy is always present no matter where happiness has fled.
Wishing you joy in the journey,
Aramis Thorn
Mat 13:52 So Jesus said to them, "That is why every writer who has become a disciple of Christ’s rule of the universe is like a homeowner. He liberally hands out new and old things from his great treasure store.”
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