Fullness of Joy

“You will show me the path of life.  In Your presence is fullness of joy.” Psalm 16:11

A million things beckon to me on this morning in everyday life, the dirty dishes, the piles of laundry, the stack of phone calls to return and bills to be paid… all of the list of things that I have done one million times.  And it’s not just the chores beckoning me, all the cares and needs of the people I love, a heart full of concern and burdens to give back to Jesus to carry.  I step onto our little back porch for a moment of fresh air and let the sun drench my face and I am instantly aware of His presence with me.   I close my eyes and remember the feeling well- His sun shining on my heart and all of those children’s hearts in a little mountain village in Romania.  We were there for 2 months to spend time with the orphan boys in a country that had just recently been freed from communist rule.  Our morning walk to greet the boys was often a moment that seemed otherworldly.  I can still see those little shoeless, half dressed boys, tummies empty, running at full speed toward us with a grin from ear to ear.  The sun was shining through the trees and down on us as we ran together and joined hands.  God was present there in that dancing circle of greeting and singing and rejoicing in Love, God’s love, God’s life in the now.  Heaven came down and made a stark ray of light in the midst of an otherwise dark and painful place. 

One of my favorite heroes whom you may know well, is Corrie Ten Boom, a Dutch woman whose whole family was confined in concentration camps in Germany in the 1940’s.  I cannot think of a more horrendous place of darkness and pain than this place where Corrie lost all of her family and survived Ravensbruck where more than ninety-six thousand women died.  Her accounts of God reaching down to them there in that hell and bringing pieces of joy and life and purpose are true testament to the immense power in God’s presence even in the darkest place.  Corrie’s barrack being known as “the crazy place, where they hope.”  Corrie says, “Yes, hoped, in spite of all that human madness could do.  We had learned that a stronger power had the final word, even here.”

Yes, it is this same joy, this same hope, this same living fully in any moment that I have because it is the same God who loves and lives with me.   When I fix my heart on thanking Him and being aware of His presence I am filled up and I could be anywhere with any circumstance, be it cleaning the bathroom for the hundredth time or locked in a cell, where He is I find my joy, and what good news, He is everywhere!  There is nowhere I can go from His presence.  David says, “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold You are there, If I take the wings of the morning or dwell on the other side of the sea, even there Your hand shall lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me.” Psalm 139:7-10

Where He is, there is life, and there is always the possibility of joy.