Making Room for Joy
So I have a confession to make.
My kids are on technology way more than I want or think is healthy. And it is something we plan to work on but the reality is that with job change, friend-change, wildlife in the yard, everything shut down, remote learning all day on chrome books, they are on screens WAY TOO MUCH!
And if you’re a mama or a grand-mama, I am not sure if you have realized like me that kids are more ornery when on tech and less apt to get up and out. But honestly, if you had handed me the world-wide-web as my learning tool, I would get sucked in too. And I realized I pretty much have with an IPhone.
Have you ever looked at two people in a car or a family at dinner and seen them all looking down at their phones. Have you thought “Huh, that sure looks so odd? People all sitting together but instead of their faces aglow with conversation, their faces are aglow with the light from their device?”
We were doing a steering wheel meal with our crew (cause you can’t dine in) and I looked at the car next to me with two people on their tech. And I said to Dave, “Hey babe, that’s what we look like.” It was just kind of a sad picture. To realize, I would be sitting with the love of my life next to me, but sucked into the screen. Sucked into its story rather than writing our story.
This might just us, but I feel like between our schedules and our screens, we have sucked out any space for joy.
So if we expect to experience joy. We need to make room for it.
As we light the candle of joy this week of advent, let us ponder the words of the famous carol…
Joy to the world the Lord is come
Let earth receive her King
Let every heart prepare him room
And heaven and nature sing
And heaven and nature sing
And heaven and nature sing
Did you hear that? It was a proclamation and prayer.
Joy has come to the world. Her King is here! But may every heart prepare him room. May our hearts prepare room for the King of the world and the joy he brings!
And as you know from the story. As Joseph and Mary searched throughout Bethlehem to find a place to give birth, they kept hearing.
“Sorry, we have no room.”
So in a stable, most likely resembling more of a cave. She gave birth. And placed her son, the joy of the world, in a manger. A trough really.
My heart resonates with that picture in 2020. The only room I have for joy is more of a stable than a 5 star hotel and I feel like I am scrapping joy off the bottom of a trough rather than scooping it up out of the latest pottery barn crib.
With all the isolation we are all facing, I feel like I am fighting for my joy, something that usually comes pretty naturally for me. And as I have talked to many other friends and mamas it seems the struggle is similar.
How do we find our joy?
Lets take a little wisdom from the carol and start by making room for it.
Last night, as a church family we tried to make room for it. We made room for the joy that comes through community, caroling, some hot cocoa and the tradition of remembering the cost of Christmas, by taking communion.
In a season as many have needed to stay home from church to protect their health, gatherings indoors are tricky, and anxiety and isolation are running rampant, we threw a drive thru parking lot party. Equipped with all the above, despite the blustery temps and snowy roads.
Some drove thru. Others got out of their cars and stood around the warmth of the fire. Others toured the inside of a building that has been a conduit of community and connection to God they haven’t enjoyed in months.
But as we gathered in the glow of the lights of our church. We made room for joy. As we sipped hot cocoa warming our insides and sang carols warming our souls, joy came alive.
Joy came alive in our hearts as we made room for our King and his Kingdom. And I’m not sure if the elk that were walking around hours earlier joined in, but heaven and our nature was singing.
May the God of all hope and love bless you this holiday as you make room for more of his Kingdom in your hearts. May joy abound where Satan has tried to steal it. May peace silence anxiety. May creativity flourish to help your and your family find ways claim the joy he brings as we behold our King. Merry Christmas!
