Jolly Blogger

I was also reading another blog yesterday, in one of my this-doesn't-look-productive-but-it-may-be moments. It's entitled the Jolly Blogger and it definitely spoke to me.

A the top of the site is this quote:
Grace substitutes a full, childlike, and delighted acceptance of our Need, a joy in total dependence. We become "Jolly Beggars." - C.S. Lewis
You know it will be good when it begins with Lewis.

I don't know if it was what started the blog, but this guy David has been writing about having been diagnosed with cancer and the top post for yesterday day was about how he was supposed to find joy in that, despite not knowing what would happen. His hope was in healing but he's all to aware that that may not be God's plan in this.

And I don't want to sound insensitive to the gravity of his situation, I know that where I am at (3o hours till an essay is due in) is nothing in comparison, but the idea of the hope we have in God not necessarily meaning what we want it to mean yet still keeping joy in that was significant. This whole time I have not been about the joy at all. Honesty, yes. Remain hopeful and even accepting of apparent failure, partially. Joy... never even occurred to me. Yet here is a man facing death who talks about finding the greatest joy in the midst of the greatest suffering. I love joy, get it out all the time when I'm excited or glad, but this steps it up a gear.

It is also totally obvious when you remember the grace that Lewis mentions first and foremost. The grace that dawned on me yesterday. The grace that is so huge and amazing it is more than enough to keep joy in the most dire situations, nay so fantastic and delightful that joy couldn't escape if it tried. If we let it in that is.

So on my last day of this relatively small trial I am going to try and keep the joy as my top priority. That is, actually, I am up for keeping the joy and will now rely on God to bring it about. Not hard so far: waking to a fresh blanket of snow(!) and homemade pancakes with maple syrup(!!) are all good motivators... but then, so is Grace.