Joy

My husband and I started dating one month after I turned fourteen years old.  I have always had a propensity to be melancholy at times, so even at fourteen, it was typical of me to answer his question, "How are you feeling?" with the simple one-word answer, "Content."  It would drive him crazy.  "Why can't you be happy?"  Well, I just always liked being content rather than happy.  I have always liked avoiding emotional highs and lows. I prefer being steadfast and have always just liked being "simply content."  In this contentment there is an unmistakable, unshakeable joy that fills my soul at all times.  Over the past few days, I have been down with a fever and a sinus infection and I've been suffering from the flu, but yet I am able to muster, "I am happy, blessed, and loved," from the pile of blankets and tissues.  I've felt my guts knotted up as I've grieved the loss of loved ones, and yet that immovable joy remains.  It's not a joy that rejoices in bad news, but this deep sense of belonging to something bigger, the ability to see things through a different lens.  There is a song that I love from the animated movie, Moses, Prince of Egypt called "Through Heaven's Eyes."  The joy that guards my heart is the same as the sense of being woven into these lyrics:

A single thread in a tapestry-
Though its color brightly shine-
Can never see its purpose
In the pattern of the grand design.

And the stone that sits on the very top
Of the mountain's mighty face-
Does it think it's more important
Than the stones that form the base?

So how can you see what your life is worth
Or where your value lies?
You can never see through the eyes of man
You must look at your life,
Look at your life through heaven's eyes.

A lake of gold in the desert sand
Is less than a cool fresh spring-
And to one lost sheep, a shepherd boy
Is greater than the richest king.
If a man lose everything he owns,
Has he truly lost his worth?
Or is it the beginning
Of a new and brighter birth?

So how do you measure the worth of a man-
In wealth or strength or size?
In how much he gained or how much he gave?
The answer will come,
The answer will come to him who tries
To look at his life through heaven's eyes.

And that's why we share all we have with you,
Though there's little to be found.
When all you've got is nothing,
There's a lot to go around.
No life can escape being blown about
By the winds of change and chance,
And though you never know all the steps,
You must learn to join the dance-
You must learn to join the dance.

So how do you judge what a man is worth?
By what he builds or buys?
You can never see with your eyes on earth-
Look through heaven's eyes.
Look at your life,
Look at your life,
Look at your life through heaven's eyes!


Click here to watch the song "Through Heaven's Eyes" from the movie "The Prince of Egypt" on Youtube.