The Respite of Joy
Assistant Wellness Director Alex Bacon gifted us with this thought-provoking devotion at our recent staff meeting. It is too good not to share.
Throughout my life, from childhood to present day, I have heard my mom utter the phrase, “The Lord works in mysterious ways.” These words have always been such a regular mantra of my mom’s that no doubt they infused themselves into my own mindset. And I will not deny that I never fail to be amused and comforted by moments when I find myself saying the same phrase to myself or to loved ones around me.
On a Saturday last month I experienced one such powerful moment. God showed up in a wonderfully mysterious way leaving a poignant imprint on my heart and helping shift my mind. To be honest, at that particular time, I was not in a good headspace. A combination of life stressors had me feeling very overwhelmed, off kilter and troubled. As I am prone to do when I feel like this, I started power cleaning. I was vacuuming. I was folding laundry. I was paying bills. Stress and upset led me to crave order and control. And nothing quite says order and control to me better than an empty laundry basket, a smudge-free glass kitchen door, or a clean toilet.
On that particular afternoon, deep into my well-intentioned cleaning frenzy, I spotted a dog-eared magazine article folded upright on my bedside table. While barely remembering even having marked this article, its title jumped out at me in that moment. The title read, “Count your microjoys: They’re everywhere, just waiting for you to notice them.”
Microjoy? What did that word even mean? Something made me pause, and in that millisecond, I heard my mom’s words in my head, “The Lord works in mysterious ways.” And I knew right then that if God was choosing to talk to me through both my mother and Real Simple magazine, then I should probably pay attention.
I put down my dust rag, lay down on my bed, and started reading the piece. I proceeded to read about author Cyndie Spiegel’s new book, Microjoys: Finding Hope (Especially) when Life is Not OK. Spiegel writes about having coined the word “microjoy” during a very challenging stretch of time in her life that held unexpected losses and personal tragedies. Spiegel defines microjoys as “easily accessible moments of joy that can be experienced despite all else.” For Spiegel, microjoys involve noticing, appreciating, and engaging with what’s around you and availing yourself to the joy within those things. From that article and her book, which I subsequently bought, I was taken by Spiegel’s message. “Microjoys,” Spiegel writes, “teach us that life is all things and despite it all, there is always joy to be discovered. Hope to be had. Laughter to heal us. Wonderment to temporarily consume our worries. Memories to make. Moments to notice. We now know that we deserve to experience the respite of joy, even on the fringe of the hardest things."
And yes, as the word implies, microjoys are little things, little happenings, little moments. Very little. For me personally, as I have further contemplated microjoys this summer, I have found that being attuned to my senses helps reveal microjoys in my midst. And noticing such moments has brought me hope and comfort amidst stress and unknowns.
I find myself pausing more. I’ll stop and consider, what am I hearing around me? My dog sighing. My teen’s car pulling into the driveway. Cheers at a swim meet. What am I seeing? Someone smiling back at me. A squirrel lying on a limb outside my office window. What do I smell? Sweet humidity. Lemon scented lotion. Bacon cooking. What do I feel? Clean, crisp bed sheets. A loved one’s hand in mine. What do I taste? Peach and blueberry cobbler. Peppermint tea. Microjoys are immediately attainable, and as Spiegel states in her book, “the more you pay attention to them,” even amidst stress, struggle and pain, “the more they reveal themselves.” As she writes, “Microjoys don’t change the truth of loss or make grief any more convenient, but microjoys allow us to temporarily touch joy, keeping us buoyed and moving forward, one moment at a time.”
How does being attentive to microjoys differ from being mindful or being grateful? I am not exactly sure and maybe this is all semantics. But here this summer, I sure do like how the concept sounds. I like its gentleness. I like its accessibility. I like its peace. It brings me great comfort to think that no matter what else is happening, joy is hovering right there within my reach if I am open to seeing it, to feeling it, to hearing it.
On that very same Saturday when I experienced what I felt was a “stop cleaning and be still” microjoy moment, I was gifted another. Not long after having succumbed to that time to rest and reflect, I walked through my kitchen and my eyes fell on a familiar plaque on the wall. I hung this plaque probably fifteen years ago but despite its steady presence, I will admit that often my eyes gloss over its words. But on this day, I was struck by its words which grabbed my attention, words which read, “Enjoy the little things in life for one day you’ll look back and realize they were the big things.”
Little things. Microjoys. God seemed to want to bring my attention to this message not once but twice that day. What a divine gift from above and what a difference this perspective has made in my soul this summer. Like my mom always says, “The Lord works in mysterious ways.” And truth be told, my mom is usually right.