Day 7: Lent for my Joy

Jesus,

Sometimes our bodies break.

They have a lapse in judgment, get sick two times in one week, and it feels like it takes years to be whole again.

And we try to read ourselves in the midst of it, try to ask if there is a lesson to be learned, if our souls are trying to get our attention, if our spirits are trying to send us some message about life on earth.

But it may just be that we are a little broken. 

And maybe we need to know brokenness here to know that joy comes on the other side, a reminder on a ring that my toddler fetches from his pocket and gives me as I lay in bed, unmoving throughout the day.

Joy is a powerful force, who shows herself to us in the most predictable and unpredictable ways.

She is a strong and mighty being, and her presence gives us life.

She was there at the last gathering around your table, there in the corner, in a smile or nod.

She was with you when you walked the long road, a cross positioned over your bleeding back.

And joy was on the other side of your cross, an eternal kind of joy, a make-bodies-whole-again-one-day kind of joy. 

She stood at the mouth of your gravesite, spreading herself thick and tangible over everyone who came by, whispering into them, “The King! He’s alive!”

And so when our bodies, our world, our hopes seems to rattle and come undone, we look backward to you and forward to you.

We hold on, knowing that there is joy on the other side of this, joy on the other side of that, joy right in our midst.

Hallelujah and Amen.