Joy and happiness are interesting things. Sometimes, the harder we look for them, the harder they are to find. It’s usually when we give up the search that we find the things we want the most.
Joy might be staring you in the face and you may not even notice. Why does this happen? In short, whatever it is might not be what we expect it to be and we therefore don’t recognize it for what it is.
Let’s try a little experiment. Look at this Christmas Card.
What did you notice in the card? Did you notice the cute kid? The vintage plastic Santa? The sad fake tree? Did you notice anything else?
If you did great, if you didn’t keep reading.
The Christmas card above is the card my wife and I sent out this year to family and friends. As it began arriving in mail boxes, we got calls with questions and congratulations. It was fun to hand the card to people and watch their reaction as they read it.
The gasps made me smile and warmed my heart.
If you still haven’t figured it out, written neatly on the whiteboard behind my son, is a little message. “Not an only child.”
As I said, this was sent to family and friends who would absolutely know we have one child. The card was our clever way to announce we are expecting another. We wanted our family and friends to get the card and make the connection.
It’s funny that people hung the card on the mantle and completely missed the announcement.
Joy and happiness can be as easy to miss as our announcement. If something isn’t what we expect, it is easy to overlook what it could be.
As we continue to struggle with Covid as Christmas and the New Year approach, I implore you, take time and look around. The world might not be as you expect it. There is probably joys hiding right in plain sight, like a pregnancy announcement on a Christmas Card.
Congratulations! I am so happy for you three! Blaise is going to be a great bif brother! Merry Christmas!