Searching for joy

It is becoming a very difficult day. I’m functioning on little sleep because Claire was difficult to get to bed last night and she woke at 4:40 this morning. The first thing greeting me at the office was an e-mail from my mother begging me to come to Florida for Christmas. (It’s a trip we just can’t afford financially, physically or emotionally right now. I know I will have to say no. I hope one of my four siblings will manage to get down there sometime over the holidays.) Later in the morning, my MIL called to say she wants to take Claire to the doctor because her cold seems much worse. She’s very congested, irritable and not eating well.

I had to take a walk at lunchtime to pray and try to find my joy again. I didn’t find vigor, or a free chartered jet to Florida with an on-call family therapist, or a miracle cure for respiratory infections. But I found a dose of what I needed—snapshots of good things, evidence of God’s hand in the world:

The soft slant of autumn sun

Sparrows sharing a bit of bagel

Children charging through crunchy leaves

Hooves clattering on cobblestones as tourist carriages roll down Fifth Street

A neigh and snort and pungent whiff of manure

City schoolchildren jostling in a queue for the Liberty Bell, brown hands clapping, slapping, “See, see my playmate…”

A lone oak stubbornly clinging to its golden-orange foliage

A backhoe scooping dark earth

The majestic arc of a crane sweeping an I-beam into place

A concerned, head-tilted smile from a Christian co-worker who asks, "How are you?" and actually wants to know.