Oh happiness, there’s grace,
Enough for us and the whole human race
-David Crowder
Sometimes we just make it more complicated than it should be… than it has to be. Can you relate?
We’ve long ago learned that money and things don’t buy it, though that doesn’t seem to stop us from trying.
Technology promises to serve it up, but that server keeps crashing… hard. Of course, that won’t stop us from lining up for the next iThingy when it comes out (complete with a three-year service plan and a monthly charge).
Love? Can’t love do it? Sure, depending on whose definition you’re talking about. Honestly, most people’s definition of love would complicate a two-car funeral or reduce the rest of the world to service providers. And can you really be happy when the people around you are so miserable trying to keep you satisfied?
Yeah, I know. It’s complicated.
We’re like the parents of that preschooler who just spent hundreds on that latest gotta-have-it toy with its techno-wizardry, who are mystified that the kid just wants to play with the box. And he’s having a blast with the box, while the exasperated parents keep shoving this strange, noisy thing in his face trying to get him to be happy.
Most of us, though, have trained ourselves to look past the simple source of creative imagination (the box) and demand that the latest products or people provide us the happiness we demand. And we never quite arrive at what’s advertised… at least not for very long.
Maybe we’re looking in the wrong place. Maybe it’s time to go back to the box. Maybe it’s time to unplug – to go from “batteries not included” to “no purchase necessary.”
Maybe it’s time to rediscover the beauty of Simple Happiness. And you’ll find it: [click to continue…]
No one prepared me for how empty the Emptiness could be…
How vain the attempts would be
To fill it with things and times and feelings
That were never designed to satisfy.
It was like dropping feathers into the Grand Canyon…
Always wishing for a little more time and a little less wind.
(A few more feathers would be nice, too.)
But I would never have known the deep satisfaction
That only Your love could provide,
Had I not known the void created by a life
I tried to fill on my own terms.
But I know now I’m loved
With a love that fills deeply and completely.
And in this satisfied life… I’ve been blessed. [click to continue…]
One of Friday's Lovely Moments -Cohen's first haircut, and I got to BE the front-row seat.
Nobody has to convince you that life is busy and blazes by at the speed of, well, life. Expressions like, “Where did all the time go?” are the stuff of every-day conversation.
Sometimes that can feel painfully lonely as we emerge from the grindstone and wonder where everybody went.
Sometimes that can feel out of control as we are swept away by the rhythm and melody of somebody else’s music.
And yet…
And yet…
Even in the craziness, the busyness, and the where’d-it-all-go, life has a way of presenting what Roger Breland calls a Lovely Moment – those experiences where even if for a brief pause, life seems to come up for air and fill your heart.
Sometimes the Lovely Moment arrives in the form of a long-anticipated event, like your wedding day, graduation, or the birth of a child or grandchild.
Sometimes the Lovely Moment comes as a complete surprise, when suddenly you realize how full your heart is because of a special memory, a future conversation played out in your mind, the joyful news of a friend, or a reminder somehow that you’re being thought of.
The Lovely Moment can be an elusive thing, but only because we’re too busy, too wounded, too stressed, or too blinded to open our eyes and see them. The truth is, Lovely Moments are in abundant supply… [click to continue…]
Inside you lurks a deep desire.
It’s quiet, but compelling.
It’s one of the secrets of everything that motivates you – in fact, your deep, abiding happiness depends on it. Yet it’s so hidden, so behind-the-scenes, that if I were to ask you to list your strongest longings, I’m almost certain this wouldn’t make the list.
But it’s there. It’s powerful. And your response to it may well be the difference between addicted and sober.
Between ambition and actualization.
Between frustration and fulfillment.
The desire? [click to continue…]
Oh happiness, there’s grace,
