Joy is different than happiness. Joy is slow burning while happiness is often experienced as a blazing wildfire, easy to extinguish with a shift of the winds. I am warmed by joy from the inside out when I inhale the crisp ocean breeze under a sunset painted over the Pacific Ocean at the edge of Los Angeles, the cityscape faintly dancing behind me. Joy swells up and radiates out of me when I fan the inner flame with fresh air borne of the Rocky Mountains. I'm happy that I have the opportunity to be in these places again and again, to climb into those spaces and touch the waves and trees. It's the blessing of joy, however, that lingers in the form of knowing Heaven is just ahead and the brilliance of color and light and peace consumed by our senses on Earth are only whispered hints of what is to come.
(Submitted to www.oprah.com by me. If I get published, I won't have rights to my words, but they are mine and I'd like to share them here with you. So, in the spirit of sharing thoughts and giving up the royalties, what brings YOU joy? I'd like to know. Promise I won't sell your answer.)
The sound of a baby laughing, the sight of a senior couple holding hands at the grocery store, the sound of my husband softly breathing in the dead of night. The quiet of a heavy snow fall on a mid winter night, the colors of the sunset, the quiet of the sunrise. My children. GOD.
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