Surprised by Joy

At the bottom of my last post I put a picture of Riley, my good friends Brian & Kelly's daughter. I was living with these friends for the first 6 weeks of being back here in Denver and they are like family for me out here. Their home is always open to me, and their hearts as well. I'm going to be watching Riley for a few hours each week to let Kelly have the chance to run errands or rest for awhile and my first time doing this was this week. When I arrived, Kelly and Riley were sitting on the couch, hanging out. I sat down with them and after a few moments Riley began errupting into these belly laughs and giggles at her mom's faces and at us tickling her. We spent at least 10 minutes, just laughing and giggling with her, it was pure joy! For some reason, that time of joy has really stuck with me, reminding me how little joy I embrace and participate in on a daily basis. That day it was a gift to me & continues to be.

Below is an excerpt from "Here and Now" by Henri Nouwen, one of my favorite authors. A friend just posted this on her blog & I really wanted to share it as well...

Are we surprised by joy or by sorrow? The world in which we live wants to surprise us by sorrow. Newspapers keep telling us about traffic accidents, murders, conflicts between individuals, groups, and nations, and the television fills our minds with images of hatred, violence and destruction. And we say to one another: “Did you hear that, did you see that…isn’t it terrible…who can believe it?” Indeed it seems that the powers of darkness want to continue to surprise us with human sorrow. But these surprises paralyze us and seduce us to an existence in which our main concern becomes survival in the midst of a sea of sorrows. By making us think about ourselves as survivors of a shipwreck, anxiously clinging to a piece of driftwood, we gradually accept the role of victims doomed by the cruel circumstances of our lives.

The great challenge of faith is to be surprised by joy. I remember sitting at a dinner table with friends discussing the economic depression of the country. We kept throwing out statistics that made us increasingly convinced that things could only get worse. Then, suddenly, the four-year-old son of one of my friends opened the door, ran to his father, and said, “Look, Daddy! Look! I found a little kitten in the yard…Look!…Isn’t she cute?” While showing the kitten to his father, the little boy stroked and held it against his face. All at once everything changed. The little boy and his kitten became the center of attention. There were smiles, strokes, and many tender words. We were surprised by joy.

God became a little child in the midst of a violent world. Are we surprised by joy or do we keep saying: “How nice and sweet, but the reality is different.” What if the child reveals to us what is really real.