How to Get Your Joy Back — And Keep It

You wouldn’t have thought it was a big deal.
 
Nothing that unusual about a mother handing her exhausted grown son a warm rice bag and a couple of ibuprofen for his headache.
 
A pretty uneventful errand to bring his supper to the couch where he is resting.
 
It was one of the best moments of my life.
 
Flash back about thirteen hours. It’s about 5 a.m. that cold December day, still pitch-black outside.
 

I am awakened by my husband’s hand on my shoulder.
 
Scott does not ever purposefully touch me when I’m asleep because, well,  the consequences aren’t pretty. I know immediately something is very wrong.
 
“Jed and Mom and Dad have been in a rollover accident,” he says, voice trembling. Then, “They are all alive.”
 
My mind struggles to throw off sleep and wrap itself around this bizarre information.
 
I envision worst-case scenario: My twenty-three-year-old son and my parents-in-law all in critical condition, unconscious,  blood everywhere, lives hanging in the balance.
 
“Jed’s okay,” Scott continues.
 

Jed’s okay. I can breathe again. Jed’s okay.

My mother-in-law has a cracked vertebra and shattered wrist which puts her in a back brace and cast for some time. My father-in-law has whiplash and related symptoms which he is still gets treatments for over a year later.
 
But everyone is very much alive. Oh, praise Jesus, everyone is alive.
 
And so I bring my son his supper and touch his forehead and check his scratched ankle and keep him company while my husband checks on his parents again.
 
And I am full to the brim with joy. Jed is alive.
 
This is gratitude. This is holiness.
 
Sometimes Scott and I drive by the scene of the accident, so innocuous on dry roads in broad daylight, yet almost deadly that dark, icy morning.
 
And I relive that moment, that exquisite joy of serving my son.
 
What if I could feel that joy at other times? What if it didn’t take a brush with death to feel such deep gratitude?
 
What if we learned to experience overflowing thankfulness and happiness just because our family is gathered around the table? Because we can see?
 
Because we can walk and talk and laugh?
 
Joy can be had every single day.
 
I suspect you and I often let ourselves get ripped off.
 
Maybe what we need is to have our child-likeness restored.
 
Jesus rebuked his disciples for preventing the children to come to him. He said,
 

“Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

 
The kingdom is a place of wonder and delight and simple trust. The kingdom is about love and joy and peace.
 
The kingdom is where the ordinary becomes holy.
 
Like a little child, we need to see how amazing life is.
 
A cup of tea with a friend. Breathing in the fragrance of a rose. Laughing with the grandkids.
 
So many blessings to count. So many ordinary moments that really aren’t ordinary at all.
 
All it takes is eyes to see and a heart full of thanks.
 
Mind if I bless you today?
 
May you live in the holy place today. The place of wonder, delight, and trust; of love, joy and peace. The place where you notice the beauty in your life.
 
May the eyes of your heart drink in the loveliness of it all.
 
And may your joy be full, every day.