Joy

“In A Grief Observed, C. S. Lewis tells the story of an experience that his wife, Joy, once had:

Long ago, before we were married, [Joy] was haunted all one morning as she went about her work with the obscure sense of God (so to speak) “at her elbow,” demanding her attention. And of course, not being a perfected saint, she had the feeling that it would be a question, as it usually is, of some unrepented sin or tedious duty. At last she gave in – I know how one puts it off – and faced Him. But the message was “I want to give you something,” and instantly she entered into joy.

Left to our own devices, we all tend to “put God off,” not realizing that God “wants to give us something.” We have inherited the ancient tendency to forsake God, the mysterious “fountain of living waters” that we can neither posess nor control, and put our trust instead in “broken cisterns that can hold not water” (Jer 2:13).

… “We all may need to be reminded – perhaps rather strongly sometimes – that our Lord is, paradoxically, both a jealous and an extravagant Lover.”

— from “Unfailing Treasure: Lost and Found” by Debora Smith Douglas, Weavings, Volume XX, Nov/Dec 2005

I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. (John 15:11, NRSV)