Indulging in Joy

Do not let yourself indulge in any sadness......Why then should a soul be sad, when it serves Him who is our Joy forever? 
- St. Francis de Sales

What is JOY?......It is a delightful, happy emotion full of felicity, satisfaction, keen pleasure, elation, and festive gaiety.  It is having breathe-taking moments which produce rapture, bliss, and pleasure.  It involves allowing God to add bliss to our lives.  He desires for JOY to reside in our hearts. 

In this fast-pace roller coaster world, it can be difficult to maintain a high level of JOY within our hearts and souls.  We are bombarded with disappointments, challenges, rudeness, self-centeredness, crankiness and loneliness.  It is easy to be knocked off course and loose sight of His JOY.  We are then left with desperately  grasping the floating boat of hope while we squint for a glimpse of distant deep contentment on the horizon.  We don't need to wait to reach the destination of JOY.

 How do we stop squinting and maintain our focus on JOY?  Well.....I wish I knew......because squinting gives me a headache.  I do have my opinion on the matter.  The problem is not our focus, but the location of our JOY.  Where have we placed our JOY?  If we keep our JOY in front of us like a target, then it will be easy to loose our focus in the crowd of emotions which we experience during the day. Events will block our view of JOY like a lady with a big hat in church, or a tall man in a movie theater; or knock JOY off of our path all together like a toy train jumping its track.  Maybe, we need to consider storing JOY in our hearts.....put it in our pocket......in our safe place.....so its always there for us to savor......to grab a hold of during those moments of turmoil like a lucky rabbit foot, a pocket rosary or a devotional medal.  JOY is more than an emotion.  It is a state of mind....a perspective which we can choose to accept and apply to our actions as different circumstances arise......the good, the bad, and the ugly.

JOY is meant to be shared.  God gives it freely to us, and it grows in our hearts.  As JOY grows in our hearts, it begins to branch out looking for another heart to latch on to like the tendrils of a vine.  JOY needs room to grow, or it will stop blooming, so we need to give JOY to others through our actions or service.  No matter what trial God sends our way, let's put on our robes of JOY (Judith 10) and share the JOY.  The  JOY of our souls will be nourished.  We won't have to wait for JOY to find us or worry about keeping focused.  

'Who am I', Judith replied, 'to resist my lord? I shall not hesitate to do whatever he wishes, and doing this will be my joy to my dying day.' - Judith 12