Advent: Week 3: Joy
- Joy Bartholomew
- 9 hours ago
- 2 min read
The Joy That Sneaks Up on Seasoned Hearts
“You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” (Psalm 16:11)
We know happiness—the fun of family game night, the warmth of grandbabies’ hugs, the relief of a good night’s sleep. But joy? Deep, lasting joy can feel like something elusive. Something in the past. The joy of young love, of first babies, of dreams still wide open.
Yet the angels didn’t announce joy to the powerful or the perfect. They sang it over simple shepherds keeping watch in the fields—men who were likely middle-aged, tired, and far from glamorous.
Joy in Scripture often shows up after long waiting, in unlikely places, to ordinary people who thought their best days were behind them.
This Advent, watch for joy in the small, familiar places. It might arrive when you pull out the ornaments and find the one your child made in kindergarten, fingerprints still visible in the clay. It might surprise you in the middle of a Christmas hymn you’ve sung a hundred times, when suddenly the words feel brand new. It might come in a phone call from a friend who remembers how hard last Christmas was and simply says, “I’m thinking of you.”
Joy isn’t loud or demanding. It’s the quiet strength that lets us laugh through tears, that lets us set the table with love even when someone is missing, that lets us believe God is still writing good into our stories.
Light the third candle and smile at it. Tell God one thing that made you glad today, even if it was tiny. Joy grows in the telling. And the God who turned Elizabeth’s barrenness into dancing, who turned a stable into a throne room, is still turning our ordinary days into something beautiful.
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