Do You Search for Joy?
I adopted a baby Golden Doodle several months ago. Joey was five days old when I first saw him. My husband Richard could hold him in his hand. We brought him home weighing four pounds at eight weeks old. I named him Joey because I knew he would bring me joy. He is now 8 months old weighing 45 pounds. When I sleep, he sleeps. When I wake he is ready to be petted and played with. He brings me toys to throw for him to catch. When he wants a treat he sits, puts his huge furry paw on my knee and looks at me with his big green eyes pleading for a treat. He makes me laugh and gives me great joy.
But there is no greater joy in my life than my relationship with Jesus Christ. My four-year-old granddaughter, Avery said, “But gramma, I can’t see him. I want to see him.”
No Greater Joy
“That is because He is in my heart,” I tell her. “Someday we will all see him.”
I see Jesus as I read my Bible. I see Him standing with the woman who had been caught in the act of adultery telling the religious leaders who were getting ready to stone her to death, “Those of you who haven’t sinned cast the first stone.”
I see Him talking with a woman at a well who had been married five times and was living with a man she wasn’t married to saying, “If you only knew who I am, you would ask me for living water so you would never thirst again.”
Her need for love, security, joy, and hope would be totally filled if she let Jesus fill her. I spent a lot of my life looking for love. I thought if I was beautiful, I would be loved. I strived to keep a clean house and cook good meals, but that brought no love. I helped my ex-husband through college hoping he might then love me. As a child, I came home from school, cleaned the house, cooked dinner and did the dishes but there was nothing I could do to cause my parents to love me.
Then at the age of 23, I gave up. I stood in a graveyard thinking the only people with any peace were in their graves. I decided to kill myself. As I was getting ready to leave I looked up at the sky and saw rays of sun shining through the clouds. “Only God can paint a picture like that,” I thought. “God,” I prayed, “If you are there and care about me. Would you help me?”
Seek and You Will Find. Knock and the Door Will be Open to You
These words went through my mind, “Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be open to you. Ask and it will be given to you.”
“I don’t think like that,” I told myself. “I don’t know what doors to knock on. I don’t know where to seek. So I ask you, God, to send whatever it is I need to my front door. I will wait through days before I end my life.”
The next morning a carload of women from a local church came to my front door. They said,
“Jesus Christ has sent us to tell you He wants to fill you with love, joy, and peace if you will give your life to him.”
That evening I gave my life to Christ. He promised to give me the Holy Spirit which is the spirit of love, joy, and peace. Since that day I have known joy even in the midst of great trials and trouble. He has never left me. My lasting and true joy has been in Christ who loves me totally and unconditionally. I have never had to strive for His love. It is within me all the time. I am never alone and know that everything will work out good because Christ is in me and I am in Him.
My precious husband Richard is a joy to me. My funny dog Joey is a joy. My children and grandchildren bring joy. But my greatest JOY is Christ who is always with me. Joy is a part of me, because Christ is in me.
