Rejoice! I shall say it again: rejoice!

{Gratutious Joyful Child Photo}

Bonnie Engstrom, whom I had the pleasure of working with and meeting last year at the Behold Conference, invited me to participate in an Advent series over at her blog, A Knotted Life. It’s one of the few writing “assignments” I said yes to, and I’m glad I did. She gave me Gaudete Sunday, which seemed providential since all Advent long I’ve been receiving messages on how to lead a more joyful life – even in the wake of suffering, hardship, horrific tragedies like what happened in Connecticut, and Poopcassos*. I’ve included a morsel of my post below, but I hope you’ll consider reading the whole thing over at Bonnie’s space.

*A Poopcasso is a baby who, during his naptime, breaks and enters into his poopy diaper and delights in using stinky finger paint all over the walls and crib.

Happiness is all fine and good, but it passes with more frequency than my baby’s bowel movements. And that’s saying a lot considering my little man pooped three times just yesterday. In other words, happiness, which becomes happenstance when translated in Latin, is fleeting and at the whim of life’s circumstances. I feel happy when my husband and I sneak away for a date night – or just share a glass of vino at home before passing out from exhaustion. I’m not so happy when I step on a rogue Lego in bare feet or when all four of my children become nocturnal and offer me anything but a silent night.

Joy, on the other hand, comes from within; it resonates in your soul. You carry it with you even as you stumble through the day like a total “mombie.” Joy remains your companion even as you carry heavy crosses like a cancer diagnosis, the death of a child, or chronic, debilitating pain. I know people who are dealing with these kinds of struggles; yet, they’re still able to laugh, to savor the smallest of blessings in life, and to give thanks for their faith and their life as it is with ickiness, disease, and all. They look beyond the hand life has dealt them – a lousy hand right about now (good luck makes us happy; God makes us joyful even in the face of bad luck), and they choose joy. They choose Him.

That’s what the third Sunday of Advent known as Gaudete Sunday is all about. (Gaudete is Latin for rejoice.) It’s about choosing Him, choosing joy, and rejoicing even when life has you down. It’s about seeing the babe in the manger as more than a sweet symbol but as a gift – the only gift that matters, a vessel of hope. Yes, what’s to come is bigger and better than our limited human intellect could ever imagine. It’s what St. Paul encourages us to do: To consider it all – even the heartache, the burnt cookies, and the nuclear diapers – as joy.