Ive found that one of my gifts is a recurrent sense of joy. Some days I even seem to wake up joyful. I long for the complexity of the simplest beauties. The sunrise makes me joyful. The general quiet atmosphere of morning makes me joyful. The warmth of the sun covering me makes me joyful. Being caught in a thunderstorm makes me joyful. Mountains make me joyful. The sound of waves against the sand makes me joyful. I used to somewhat resent this quality when people would describe me as merely “happy”. “But there’s so much more to me”, I secretly thought. If only they knew the depth of my existence and the things I hid. I always hid. I think we fear our own darkness. We are shamed by the thought that we are composed of something bad or wrong. I’m not loveable. I’m strange. No one knows me. I am not enough. Why why are we so quick to disown our own goodness? My joyfulness is a gift and even that I do not love. As I sat on the edge of the roof with my feet dangling, looking off into the mountains in the distance surrounding me on all sides, I was overcome with love and joy and peace. There was so much depth to this joy. So much life in it. So much God in it. And yet we hide. “This joy is not just for you”, he whispers into the reaches of my joyful solitude. “Stop hiding. Your joy is for others”
Flickering Lights 