Joy

This half-off Goodwill coffee mug ☕️ called my name this morning, when my daughter and I met some friends there to thrift shop. 💕

You can’t tell it from the picture, but it has a blue-ish tint, and a small bird on the backside, and bluebirds and positive words bring me great 𝒿ℴ𝓎, so for a few bucks I thought it well worth it to bring this home with me!

We checked out, and they wrapped it up in one of my other purchases: a zip-up hoodie for our girl, who came downstairs not long after we got home, sheepishly showing me how the handle of my mug had broken because it slipped out of the bag when she pulled her sweatshirt out, not knowing they had wrapped it up like that. 🤦🏼‍♀️

Needless to say, I wasn’t entirely happy about it.
I didn’t even get to use it o.n.e time!

I told her just to pitch it, and chalked the whole thing up as an unfortunate $2 loss, which for sure could have been worse.

But a half hour-ish later she came back downstairs after having used her nail glue to piece the broken handle bits back into place.

Not perfectly, as you can clearly see by the photo 😉 but lovingly.

And in that moment the word on the mug shone as brightly as the sun peeking from behind a cloud, calling all attention to it! ⛅️ ☀️

✨ ✨ ✨ 𝒥 𝒪 𝒴! ✨ ✨ ✨

What is the difference between happiness and joy, after all?

Happiness hinges upon everything being and happening perfectly. Just as planned. Or better than planned, even.

Happiness is what we feel when the weather is warm and the sun is shining.

But joy?
Joy outshines happiness.
Joy oozes out of a 𝒹ℯℯ𝓅ℯ𝓇 well,
into the atmosphere from the inside, out,
rather than relying on the outside to soothe the in.

Joy sees the imperfect,
the “accidents”,
the disappointments,
the dreary weather,
and says “So what? 🙃🙂 There’s still so much here to be thankful for!”

Joy feels the windy day, indeed,
and yet the Spirit-wind inside her blows with even more perisistence, until what would be grumbles about the weather give way to songs of gratitude instead.

For a moment, I really liked this like-new mug I found at the thrift shop.

In another moment, I thought it had become trash.

And then one moment later, I realized that God has helped me to turn it into a piece of art instead, so that I could drink of its message daily instead of drinking my coffee out of it once in awhile.

I think I’ll use it to hold some flowers this Spring!
𝒟ℴ𝓊𝒷𝓁ℯ joy that will be! 💐

Even better than I had planned!