joy

He said he saw it on me when he walked into the room. Joy.

He later asked me where it came from, this joy.

It was perhaps an unusual place to see joy. On a cold, dark December evening, I sat close to her bed, my mother-in-law's hospice bed. She knew me this time, and asked about my knitting and whether my mother was a knitter. And did I have enough light to see by?

A spark of joy, because of her knowing.

"I love you," she said. Sweeter because this time, I was sure that it was me she loved, and that I was not some anonymous kind person visiting her.

Joy. Being known. Being loved.

So I spoke to him my rambling thoughts about joy, how God gave me a bubbling brook of joy for three days after my salvation. Joy was not my nature. Never, not even as a child, could I have been described as joyful. So joy came as a gift from God.

I told him about loving the Word of God and the freedom of knowing the truth and being set free. Of knowing the Truth, Jesus. And I described as best I could, for it is indescribable, the entering in to God's presence as I play the piano. Heart to heart, spirit to Spirit. Wrapped together, inseparable.

So that is also joy. Joy comes as a gift from God.

Being known, being loved. Not for what I do or say or think. Simply for being.

And as I sit with my mother-in-law in her room - where she no longer does but is, I see this: She is not afraid to die. Joy will come as a gift of God, even in the hard place of waiting to die.

May I live with this word held closely as I walk daily with the Living Word.

Joy.