When all joy is lost

Laughter abounded while visiting with my friend. 

We shared deeply. 

Tears formed.

I felt her sufferings. Some I hadn’t experienced, others were close to my heart.

Life has an ebb and flow; happiness and heartache. And the two can merge like serene ocean and hurricane ravaged land.

It can feel like you’ve lost your joy and the light within. You look in the mirror and realize trauma has too quickly added years to your face. Or that you’ve left the extrovert behind and now the introvert doesn’t want to come out and play.

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Disappointment keeps us focused solely on what happened and the remnants of what remains.

It doesn’t leave room for the ‘what could be’, or what God can do. 
Scripture reminds us that we don’t see the full story, only through a steamed up mirror.

“For now we see obscurely in a mirror, but then it will be face to face. Now I know partly; then I will know fully, just as God has fully known me.”1 Corinthians 13:12 CJB

We don’t know everything. Nor can we explain away what’s happened.

When all joy feels lost, give yourself the grace of time.

There’s a wave of healing when you yield to what’s happened and open to what’s next. It is there, that you’ll find acceptance and the courage to eventually welcome the breaker of joy back in.

However long that takes.