Joy Complete

Joy…it is not as much an emotion but a condition. A state of being.  It’s probably been said by someone very knowledgeable in the area of human emotions.  I believe it. 

Try to describe joy and it comes up half baked. 

My brother-in-law would say “choose joy” as he went though four years of treatment for cancer and I’m sure it wasn’t about having a happy feeling. 

Jesus said something about wanting complete joy for us and it was when he knew he was soon to die. Not the most upbeat of times. 

I have wanted to blog about something more fun than this silly period in life I find myself captured. I am lacking for content. 

I watched some juvenile squirrels traverse the trees and shrubs on the edge of my yard.  That lifted me for a moment.   It wasn’t long and I remembered the once busyness of my household and down I went. 

I am told I am grieving the changes with the emptying of my nest.  Tell me something I don’t know. 

Maybe what I need to learn about “choosing joy” and experiencing joy complete is that  joy is the state that come with experiencing beginnings and endings fully.  Not stepping aside but walking into what ever happens.    

Feel my heart quicken as I remember what it was to hear my child cry in the middle of the night.  Or, giggle when I think about them taking their first sputtering steps.  Feel that longing as I had to stand back while they navigated not being asked to prom or Sadie Hawkins.  Wishing I kept my mouth shut about their look that day. 

Crying when they are successful because it means they get to have their heart’s desire and I know they are really leaving home. 

With life comes death, beginnings and ending. And, joy is just living unabashedly through them and knowing all will be and is well. God is good.  And, I am loved. That is joy.  Joy complete.