Joy.
It’s so much more than just being happy. It’s a feeling that starts deep down in your heart. It rises above common sense and is the secret behind smiles even when circumstances seem to be more suited to tears. Ill winds may blow on the outside but joy lives in the depths of a God-centered soul and storms will not affect it. True joy springs from a loving God. It is bigger than the scope of your vision and the width of your wildest dreams. Therefore, the limits of this world cannot affect joy. It is a Godly thing that depends only on faith.
Young Mary sets off to visit her cousin Elizabeth. Both women are dealing with frightening circumstances. Elizabeth had long ago given up on a dream of motherhood. Now she finds herself in an unexpected high- risk pregnancy. Mary is betrothed to Joseph. According to Hebrew customs, she must remain in her father’s house for one year preparing herself for marriage while Joseph builds their house. They consider themselves married once the betrothal begins in all ways except intimacy, so an unexpected pregnancy is a disaster for both families involved. Joy is not a word that I would expect to use to describe either of them. but that is only because I am thinking in earthly terms, not in Godly terms.
When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women 
and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished!”
Luke 1: 41-45
When Mary first greets Elizabeth, Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, immediately recognizes who is standing in her doorway. She refers to Mary as the mother of my Lord. She knows the baby that Mary is carrying, is Messiah. Elizabeth’s words to Mary are filled with wonder and joyful excitement.
In this, we catch a glimpse of Advent Joy. An anticipatory joy at the thought of the gift God is holding out to us. As Elizabeth comes to understand who this baby is, she responds to Him in joy and wonder.
When was the last time you read the familiar Christmas story in the first and second chapters in Luke? Can you feel Elizabeth’s excitement as she greets her young cousin. In her response, we see a measure of how we can respond to Him.
During Advent, we light candles for Hope, Peace and this week, Joy. When I read Mary’s words in the passage, I sense her hope and peace despite the situation. In Elizabeth’s words, there is joyfulness. They had been given understanding through the Holy Spirit that they are about to meet Messiah, the Hope of the world, the Prince of Peace and the Joy of salvation. They respond in faith which results in hope, peace and joy.
May you be filled with His joy as you experience the beauty of this Christmas season.
The wolf will live with the lamb, and the leopard lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them. 
Lately my daily reading has been jumping me all around the Bible. Today I added some Old Testament prophecy to my readings as we head into the Christmas season. It seemed fitting to be reading about the hope of Israel during the first week of Advent when we focus on the concept of hope.
It’s official! My hubby and I have become the ultimate nerd couple. We spent a weekend in Cape May, NJ birdwatching with binoculars around our necks, cameras in hand and apps making bird calls on our phones. We may look weird but we are actually having a lot of fun!
New Jersey, to watch the migrating birds that will gather there before crossing the Delaware Bay as they continue south for the winter. Our anniversary also happens to fall in October, so it’s a perfect excuse to splurge ourselves on a weekend at a Victorian bed and breakfast while spending the days hiking the trails along the beach and salt marshes in search of birds and the last few straggling monarch butterflies.
At this point the gentlemen standing about ten feet away from us put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Do you two realize that there are both egrets and herons here? The egret is there (pointing to the left) and the three herons are there (pointing to the right). We lowered our binoculars to get a wider view and realized that we were both looking at two different birds that were only about twenty feet from each other. And there was even a third heron in the water that I couldn’t see because I had my binoculars trained on the two roosting in the trees. We all had a good laugh at how blind people can be and all it takes is one kind stranger to point out the obvious.
I love when God pulls things together in a way that I can understand. All summer I have been working through a Bible study on the book of Ruth. The climax of Ruth’s story in Chapter 3 centers on the threshing floor at the end of harvest season. For six weeks, the workers and Ruth have been gathering the wheat harvest. In chapter three, the action shifts to the threshing floor, a hilltop overlooking the fields where the wheat is brought to be prepared for storage. It is here that Ruth proposes to Boaz. It is here that Boaz tells Ruth to rest as he springs into action to tie up any legal hassles that might prevent a wedding. She trusts him to clear away any obstacles and places her future in his hands. Over the years, this moment has become synonymous with a person placing their trust in Jesus. When we admit that we need Jesus to secure our future and realize that by dying on the cross, He has already taken away any obstacles to our eternal life in His home, we are standing on a symbolic threshing floor where we can offer ourselves as a bride to Jesus, trusting that everything He has already done for us will suffice.
I admit it – I still have a wall calendar hanging on the wall in my kitchen and over my writing desk. And yes, I still write appointments, birthdays and special dates on them. I find that it helps to keep track of everyone’s schedule if they write them out for all to see. Then I have to remember to transfer the dates to my electronic calendar. I’m still working on that.
I walk out to my garden. I have always grown sunflowers each summer to honor my father. He had an amazing green thumb and was very proud of the extra- large sunflowers that he would grow. I have never been able to grow those large ones but this year I have a mass of smaller multicolor blooms that he would have loved to see. Strangely, I can’t remember if I had managed to grow any sunflowers the summer we lost Troy, but something about this year’s garden is reminding me of him. Beautiful cheery flowers that are telling me to stop being so maudlin. He is free of all his physical ailments, no more surgeries looming in his future. He is running through a field of sunflowers in God’s gardens and laughing. I soak in the colors and feel a smile start somewhere deep inside, working it’s way to my face.
I’ve just returned from a week at the Jersey shore. I can still hear the seagulls cry, feel the sand between my toes and the taste the salt spray on my face. But what I really love about the beach are the seashells. Those broken, jagged bits of marine life scattered on the sand which most people only see as a barrier to step over on their way to the water. I can spend hours walking the surf, head down and plastic bag in hand, searching for any shell that strikes my fancy.
the hole in the center of each one to make a necklace that was considered high fashion among the children at the beach. I had no idea that the hole had been made by a seagull’s beak as the bird tried to get at the meat inside the shell. Those holes in each shell are the remnants of the pain and defeat which the creature felt in life. But if a kid with a length of twine and the patience to find a couple dozen shells can make them into a necklace that will be the envy of all the other kids on the beach, imagine what God can do with our broken, tattered souls if we trustingly place ourselves in His hands.
God sees beauty in places we would never think to look. He works with our wounds and creates an earthly version of His image in us. Our scars are outlines for Him to color vibrantly and add depth to our character. He teaches us compassion from our own pain, empathy through our tears and then turns us loose on a world that is hungry for hope. He makes us into instruments that will sing His song and speak His words, words that are etched in love. He will teach us how to speak them with humility. And this is something that we could not imagine happening but He knows what can be.
