True Joy

A friend of ours wrote once "How can I have Joy?"  She used Websters definition of joy and said that she did not have "it" and that she couldn't have "it" while she is going through so much.  Our friend has three little kids and her husband has been going through tests with lumps on his neck and so far the doctors are unable to find out anything.

Here is my wife's response to her,

"Joy is not a 'feeling' but a 'knowing' that Jesus loves us and endured more suffering than we can imagine so that we'll have eternal life.  That eternal life does start now even though we are stuck in these sin-sick bodies.  Remember Jesus is our 'cure,' and He enables us to look beyond our circumstances.  I know that it is not easy, but it can be done.  The 'world's' definition of  joy is earthly... a "present" joy in things of here and now.  What we have though is so much greater!  It is eternal.

It helps, too, to think of others who are facing trials that are worse than ours and somehow have found joy in it.  Joni Eareckson comes to mind.  Or my neighbor who has had a stroke a few years ago.  She sits in her chair and prays for others.  Recently my friend who has a seven year old diagnosed with cancer after losing a child and having heart surgery on another child and she says, "God is teaching me to praise Him in all things."

Joy. It changes our perspective on everything.