When Joy comes out of trouble.

Sometimes when we’re in the deepest trouble of our life, facing the most severe let downs you show up with this glimmer of hope, with this peculiar kind comfort that defies our situation.

I was in the thick of cleaning my house, deep diving in Nephty’s old office throwing away his tossed stuff from even ten years ago. But when I got the call from Joy, she was in the hospital after her husband had left. She was on suicide watch. She had fallen into an overwhelm and she felt alone. I knew it was a night to leave the tangle of what I was buried in. It was a moment to be available. She was in need and we are new friends—we just started to work together.

I felt so beloved busting Joy out of the hospital and taking her home. She told me all about the trauma that just happened. I let her unfold it. Right as we were leaving the hospital was this fat rainbow, pushing through these dark clouds, this moody sky. “Look Joy, look! This rainbow is for you.”

Isn’t that so much how it goes sometimes?
How in the darkest moments you show up almost absurdly with joy. With this gust of promise to remind us that you’re there, that you’ve got our back. This rainbow poking through the darkness and mood of a troubled sky. Coming through almost obnoxiously.

I took her home and we decided to take a walk around her complex. There were lots of trees and we kept winding around. And as we strolled we marveled. We prayed. We laid out all the things. And somehow this hope began to infuse as we went. We started to claim a new story. It was like opening a door to another narrative. How simple the comfort was but how much it remained. We kept walking all the way to this little hole-in-the-wall sushi place that Joy loved.

By the time we got home it was like all that weight lifted. She told me how much it meant to her, and how it really felt real that things were going to be not only good but better.. God you are making things new this year. It’s like you give us these moments because you don’t want us to revert. Sometimes the mess in our life stays but you show up with these doses of life. You make us brim in our spirit.

God thank you that you are moving. God thank you that you are a comforter. You are opening new doors we never knew would come.