Sunday, July 20, 2008

Happy

Happiness is ephemeral. Like rainbows and summer breezes and sunrises, it steals into your heart and you can only gasp at its beauty and the lifting of your heavy soul. When you've gone a long time without being Happy, you forget what it feels like. How your ordinary life is illuminated; everything seems perfectly fitted together; disasters, earthquakes and uncertainty fade into the back of your mind as though they were part of a faintly remembered dream, ridiculous to recall in the bright sunlight.

If we always lived Happy, nothing would ever get done. We would stay children in a perpetual wonderland, never learning that hardship, brokenness and wandering is essential to molding strong and noble hearts to fight the good fight. That the rainbow is beautiful because we have sat through the storm. That the sunrise brings joy because we waited, despairing-desperate in darkness. That the battle victory is so much more exhilarating because it was so nearly lost.

Still, simple Happiness unearned, encountered unexpectedly reminds us why living is such a precious gift. And hopefully, memories of Happiness will envelop the finer qualities of love, patience and wisdom in our souls when we finally depart this world with a smile on our faces.

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