Day5 Thoughts on Joy

My first post here was a Joy Log. (Sometimes I add things to it.) I have kept a Gratitude Log in the past and I should probably start one up here, too. But gratitude and joy are not the same thing. 

Gratitude springs up from a recognition of a good thing in my life. My house. My friends. There are so many good things in my life. I need only raise my head and look around to see things that make me thankful. 

Joy is a different thing. It seems to well up inside, at the littlest things or nothing at all. It bubbles up and lifts me up, freeing me from my limits, from my self. I've always been pretty resistant to joy. At the first gurgle, I would think, "That's just silly!" and I would push it away. And I can.

Recently, I've been reminded that joy is one of the gifts of the Spirit. I've asked the Lord to teach me about joy. Gently, He drips in a smallest drop, to help me to stand it, to resist fleeing (which seems to be my natural response to joy.) I'm still often resistant, because, as I said, sometimes it's over the smallest things. Once it was the taste of peanut butter and blueberries. Even now, it seems so silly! But joy welled up and overflowed.

I've asked the Lord to share some of His joy with me, so I can tolerate it and learn where joy is, and how joy opens my heart to all the gifts that the Lord yearns to give to me. I've learned that joy has no force. No force, But power beyond my understanding.

Dear Lord, thanks for your many graces to me today!