The Catholic Writers Guild

 

I Know Her! – Bet You Might Too

Doesn’t this picture just light you up? If you’re like me, it’s impossible not to sprout a ginormous smile over the joy that cascades from this photo. Ok, while my title claims that I know the girl depicted, I don’t. But I do know someone just like her. This person, like the girl in the picture, is perpetually smiling, always joy-filled, continuously happy in the moment, and, most importantly, is perpetually infecting those around her with a highly transmittable happiness.

My guess is that she is unaware of what she is doing, of the effect she has on others, or that what she is doing is something most of us consider extraordinary. To her, she’s just being the only person she knows to be, herself.

Know anyone like this?

If you’re like me, you wish you could be as joy-filled.  This is a righteous goal, one that we all should desire and strive for. C.S. Lewis once said, “Joy is the serious business of heaven.” St. John Paul the Great puts it squarely in our earthly realm when he said, “God made us for joy. God is joy and the joy of living reflects the original joy that God felt in creating us.” And if the quotes of two great men are not enough, how about what Jesus himself has to say about joy; “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.”

The bottom line is that God wants us to be happy. He wants every fiber of our body to respond and to look like the girl in our photo, (I just can’t stop staring and smiling at that photo!). But I’m sure you’d agree, people like this, the embodiment of God’s joy filled presence in us, seem as rare as a mild summer in Phoenix. More present are those of us who say the world has beaten us down, who wear our worries and angst on our faces as billboards proclaiming the difficult burdens of living. The cynic reading this could very well be thinking, “Perhaps your friend, Deacon, hasn’t had to go through the terrible things I’ve encountered in life. Let’s see how she looks when life cross-checks her into the boards.”

And that, my friends, is the amazing thing. My joy-filled, always smiling friend has encountered some of the worst trials life has to throw at any of us, including more than one very tragic death among the people she greatly loves. Trust me, she has borne several afflictions; well more than life has thrown at the average person. And there she stands; perpetually glowing. Every time I see her, I can’t help but smile. Her smile, her entire persona radiates and projects what we want to have and what God has intended for us since day one: happiness, soaked in coatings of infectious joy.

The question becomes, how? How does she maintain this joy? How is her joy contagious despite life heaving every type of saddening malady her way?

My guess is you know the direction I am heading with this. It’s hardly a secret given the nature of my blog/website and my ordination. But truth is truth. Recall the quote I presented earlier from the Gospel of John, “I have told you this so that ‘my joy’ may be in you and your joy may be complete.” Perhaps you didn’t catch it the first time, but notice: it’s not just joy that God wants us to have, he wants us to have his joy! God is the source of joy; he is all joy.

While the actual events of my continuously smiling friend’s life look to the outside observer as one continual poop storm, to her, that life, her life, is one where joy can’t help but to dominate her living landscape. Why? Because she realizes what so many of us miss; there is a God who loves her and who has promised her joy now, and eternally. Can anything beat the promise of joy-filled eternity?

While many of us know of this promise, it remains an abstract; words that we don’t perceive as reality. It’s only when we realize that the only lasting joys are the ones that come in knowing, in a personal way, the source of all joy and promise of joy eternal, that we can ever experience it in our earthly life.

I believe that, while God has expressed this desire in scripture and in his Son, he has also provided guideposts like my beaming friend. The next time you run into such a person, someone whose joy is infectious, let that be a reminder to you that this is what God wants for us all, and it is achievable!

Joy comes when we internalize all the facts of faith; when we see God not as articles of faith, but rather as both Creator and a relatable person who is in love with us. In the end, does anything else matter but this relationship? The answer is no. I believe that when we realize this, our joy triggers will be switched permanently to the ‘on’ position. May our prayer be that it happens sooner than later for each of us and that perhaps, someday, we too will become that rare joy-filled friend that someone can’t help but write about.

Copyright Dennis Lambert 2022.