Yesterday I was eavesdropping chatting on Twitter and I saw that my friend michaelsownmom was talking about how her little boy waved and shouted a greeting at a woman who was walking down the street, but the woman didn’t respond. And understandably, that bruised his feelings just a little.

I replied to her that my six-year-old does the same thing – if someone is walking down the sidewalk in front or behind the house, he’ll stop what he is doing and holler Hi There! and wave with his hand high in the air, sometimes until they are clear out of sight.  I added that I really have to fight the urge to stifle him, but really, why?

MichaelsDaddy chimed in that he sometimes feels like he needs to protect him from the rejection of those who won’t respond in kind.

I think every parent can relate to that, the overwhelming urge to protect our babies from the hurts and rejections of the world.

If I am to be honest though, I think one reason I want to temper Sean’s enthusiasm in shouting greetings to all who pass is because, for reasons unbeknownst to me, it’s a little embarrassing. We tend to not do that kind of thing much these days and our world is probably a little darker for it.

But like MichaelsDaddy, also known as Tom, I too want to protect my baby from those who won’t acknowledge him or respond in kind.

But the cold reality of life on this planet is that there will always be a steady stream of rejection to be had.  So, from a practical standpoint, why not start practicing now?  Why not get used to rejection from complete strangers so that way when he grows up and is on Twitter and gets notice of 14 unfollowers, it won’t hurt his feelings. As much.

But immeasurably beyond that, to stifle him would be to counter the exact thing I’m trying to teach him – always reach out, always extend kindness to others,  even when it is not acknowledged or returned.

About 14 years ago, I bought a huge, down-filled, ridiculously expensive Henredon sofa. I had it made in this exquisite blood red damask fabric and it was a vision of beauty for all who laid eyes or butts upon it.

Luckily, I bought the sofa before I met AD because he would never authorize that kind of spending.  Not so lucky is that it never occurred to me that once you spend that kind of money on a sofa, you are loath to ever get rid of it. And trust me on this:  There is not a sofa on the planet that you will want to keep your entire life.

Well why not just get it recovered you might ask? And that is a reasonable question. The problem is that I could buy a brand new sofa and maybe even a few other things for what it will cost me to have it recovered.  It will require a substantial outlay of cash and outlaying of cash is just not in our immediate or foreseeable future.

So then, right now I have a formerly glorious red sofa that has turned a sad shade of pink from the sun and suffers a terminal case of thread rot. And if I may be honest, the giant expensive, formerly glorious, now ugly sofa is really getting on my nerves.  Every time I walk through my living room, it pains me to look at it.  It is the Norma Desmond of the sofa world.

Last week, as I was pulling into the neighborhood I saw a Thomasville truck in front of my neighbor’s house and two men were hauling in a houseful of brand new furniture. I slowed to gawk at the spectacle of it all.  And I may have pressed my nose against the car window and drooled just a little.  I coveted. Oh yes I did. I coveted with a vengeance.

With a heart drenched in envy, I continued around the block towards home, driving past the house of a woman whom I only knew in passing. But she doesn’t live there anymore. She lost her battle to cancer about this time last year leaving behind a husband and a ten-year-old boy.

Maybe she left behind a really nice sofa.  Or maybe hers had thread rot too. I don’t know.  But either way, it didn’t matter.  She left it all behind.

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Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.   Matthew 6:19~21

In his famous poem Ode to Immortality, Wordsworth wrote that our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting.

I’ve always loved that imagery. I love the idea that at one time, in some unknown form, we dwelled with God, that we communed intimately with him, knew every line in his face, the softness of his hands, the sound of his voice, the warmth of his embrace.

And then we were born.

No wonder we come into this world wailing.

As we are awakening to a new world, we are dying to another.  Every minute of life carries us further away from whence we came; the older we get, the less we remember of it.

Last Sunday evening during Children’s Bible Hour, the children were asked to draw a picture of God.  Sean immediately got to work. There was no question in his mind what God looked like.

The teacher called him to the front of the class and asked him to talk about his picture.  He held it up and told an audience of 30 or so children with confidence that he thinks God is a happy face in the sky with a beard and some swirly lines.

The teacher nodded and said with a sigh that he was sure there was a message behind his picture. Sean shook his head. “There’s no message behind the picture,” he said and then he showed the teacher the back of his paper.  Blank.  No message.

The next day, as we were eating breakfast, I saw the drawing at the end of the breakfast bar. I picked it up and looked at it again.  I asked Sean to tell me more about it.  “Well,” he said pointing his fork, “The smiley face with the beard represents God and the swirly lines are a gust of wind.”

I was intrigued by the idea of God as a gust of wind.

As I looked at the picture, I thought of how many times God has drawn near to his people in the form of wind – sometimes in a violent gust like in Acts 2:2 and other times as gentle as a whisper as in 1 Kings 19:12.

I thought of how the Greek word pneuma is used to mean both wind and spirit and how the Hebrew word ruah is used to convey both wind and spirit but also breath – the very essence of life.

And then I thought that maybe he has not yet travelled so very far from whence he came.

And I wanted to stand just a little bit closer to him.

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More esoterical musings on the nature of God from my She Speaks peeps over here.

Busy today. Another excerpt from my speech.

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I think most of us recognize the material blessings in our life, that we live in a wealthy country, that all of our needs are met with abundance.  Some of us have a little more, some of us have a little less, but all of us are well off by the standards of the world,  so it’s not too hard to be grateful for our stuff.

I do think however that we forget to be grateful for something far more valuable than our stuff, and that is our time. We all assume that we will grow old.  We’re all going to live to be a 100, aren’t we?  But you know what? None of us are guaranteed another day.  There’s no guarantee that we’ll even make it to the end of THIS day.  We all know that.  But few of us really live as though we know it.

I recently read the story of a man who knew his days were numbered.  He knew he probably wouldn’t  live to see the next season. And what struck me in his story was the gratitude he had for each new day, even though he suffered tremendously and was dealing with a lot of anxiety.

When gratitude becomes the frame through which you view the days of your life, when you can wake up every morning, thrilled to greet another day in whatever condition you find it, then you open yourself up to experiencing joy in it’s purest form. Your sense of well-being is no longer dependent upon external things which are little more than vapor.

What I hope and pray for anyone who has read thus far is that you can learn to do this without a prodding circumstance.

Gratitude’s partner is contentment, and together they combine to give you this sense of fullness and completeness that we call joy.

There are two nasty habits that kill contentment.  One is not living in the present and the other is comparing yourself to others.

Contentment is found only in the present, in this very moment on this very day. If you are spending time regretting that you didn’t have the perfect childhood or thinking about how good life will be when your kids can finally walk/talk/get out of diapers, you are robbing yourself of contentment.

The other contentment killer is comparison. You can always look out your window and see someone who has it better.  Comparing yourself to others encourages you to focus less on what you have and more on what you have not.  Comparison allows discontent to take root, choking out gratitude and joy.  Nothing good comes of comparison.

And here’s the thing about gratitude and contentment – the only person who can rob you of these things is you.  No one but you.

So then, gratitude leads to contentment, contentment leads to joy and joy leads back to gratitude. And at the center of this cycle is peace.

The wise King Solomon wrote, “He seldom reflects on the days of his life, because God keeps him occupied with gladness of heart.”

Joy is being occupied with gladness of heart.  Joy is living in the moment with gratitude and contentment.

I’m off to do car stuff and school stuff and other stuff today.  This is an excerpt from a speech I gave a while back.

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There is a verse in the book of James that says, “Consider it pure joy my brothers whenever you face trials of many kinds.”

Are you kidding me James? Pure joy? In trials? Seriously?

I have always struggled with this verse because I can’t imagine that I’m supposed to feel joyful when the world is trying to whack me upside the head, as it seems to like to do.

If I were to pick nits,  it says “consider” it pure joy. It does not say “feel” pure joy.  So if you are not feeling pure joy in the midst of your struggle, you are off the hook. Not required.

The joy is not in the trial itself, but rather it is the bi-product of the struggle, of working through the difficulty.

There is joy in the opportunity to grow spiritually in the midst of turmoil, joy in the eventual victory over the difficulty, and I think most especially, joy in the deepening of support relationships as you make your way through the hardship.  The people who come to your aid and stand beside you and gather you up are comfort and joy embodied.

And I submit to you, from my own experience, that the joy that comes from difficulty, when it comes, is life altering.  It is terribly sweet and lasting and becomes a part of who you are and how you view the experience of life here, and hereafter.

Is there joy in losing a spouse or a child or a loved one, the worst kind of trial?  No. Absolutely not.  But there is joy in the memory of the beloved that remains. The person may die, but the joy remains. Having said that, I know first hand that grief can numb you to that joy for a long time.

Joy in difficult places is like childbirth — after tremendous pain comes a tremendous and life changing joy.