Joy Doesn't Just Show Up

Neither Did My Clean House, But That's a Different Essay

I spent years waiting for joy.

I thought it worked like weather — that eventually the right conditions would align, the clouds would part, and joy would descend upon me while I was standing in the kitchen, probably still in my pajamas at 2 p.m., eating cereal over the sink.

It did not descend.

What I discovered, somewhere on the other side of cancer treatment, is that joy is not weather.

Joy is a garden. And a garden left to itself doesn’t grow lavender and Black-eyed Susans. It grows weeds. Aggressive, committed, very motivated weeds.

Joy has to be cultivated. Intentionally. On purpose. Even when, especially when, you don’t feel like it.

Here’s what nobody tells you about going through cancer treatment: you get so busy trying to stay alive that joy feels like a luxury you can’t afford.

Between the appointments, the chemo that makes you feel like your body has staged a full revolt, the radiation, the surgeries, and all the ways your body gets rearranged without your consent, finding joy isn’t really on the to-do list.

Surviving is the to-do list.

And in the middle of all of that, I wasn’t even allowed to put my hands in the dirt.

No gardening. No fresh flowers in the house.

Because: infectious disease risk.

I didn’t fully understand how much that took from me until I was standing in my yard afterward, hands in the soil, pulling something up that probably shouldn’t be pulled up, and feeling what I can only describe as unreasonable happiness over dirt.

That was joy. I just didn’t know it yet.

There’s a difference between happy and joyful, and I’ve been turning it over in my mind like a smooth river rock.

Happy is surface. Happy is the good parking spot, the first cup of coffee, the moment your grandchild laughs at something you said and you feel briefly, brilliantly, like the funniest person alive.

Joy is deeper.

It’s the root system under the plant, the stuff you can’t see that holds everything upright when the wind picks up. It’s the thing that keeps you standing even when standing is hard.

It’s the fruit-of-the-Spirit kind of joy, the kind that doesn’t depend on your circumstances cooperating.

You can be joyful in hard seasons. It’s quieter than happiness, but it’s sturdier.

My husband is devoted to his martins. We have a martin colony every year, and he tends to it with the kind of focused intention most people reserve for important things like taxes and fantasy football.

He makes sure their houses are clean. He puts out the eggshells. He gets the environment exactly right. Because martins don’t just appear because you want them to. You have to prepare for them. You have to be ready before they arrive.

Joy works the same way.

I read somewhere about an exercise for stressful seasons: before you get out of bed, smile three times.

Not because you feel like it. Not because something funny happened.

Just smile.
On purpose.
Three times.

I tried it. I felt a little ridiculous. I did it anyway.

And here’s the thing: it worked. In a quieter way. A roots-going-deeper way.

Here is my current list of joy practices, offered without judgment and with full awareness that “sprinkle glitter on the fairy garden” is on it:

• My grandchildren and I make a fairy garden every year. Each one gets their own. Every year, we add glitter. Fairy dust, technically. I cannot explain to you why this delights me as much as it does. I am choosing not to examine it.

• Fresh flowers in the house. Always. After years of not being allowed, I will never take a vase of something living and blooming for granted again.

• A simplified home. Clutter is the enemy of peace, and peace is the soil joy grows in. I am still working on this. My dining room table would like to file a rebuttal.

• Bubbles. If you hand a human being a bubble wand, something happens to their face. Every time. Keep some around.

• And underneath all of it: prayer. Asking God not just for joy as a feeling, but for joy as a growing thing. For the root system to go deep. For the soil conditions to be right.

Because the gift is there. He gave it.

But like faith, like love, like peace — it grows when we tend it.

I no longer wait for joy to find me in the kitchen. I go out to the yard. I put my hands in the dirt. I cut something and bring it inside.

And I think:

This is it. This is the thing. This unreasonable gratitude over a flower I grew myself.

And then I smile three times, just for good measure.

What does joy look like in your everyday? I’d genuinely love to know — leave it in the comments below.

Read this and thought of someone? Forward it. Share it. Joy, as it turns out, is also contagious.

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