HAVING JOY IN YOUR HEART

So in church this week I met a very interesting 87 year old woman. For someone her age she looked super happy and full of joy.

Let me just rewind this story from the beginning. So this Sunday in church as I was standing in the queue to have my bowl of soup, lost in my own thoughts and worries about life and all things worldly. This old lady turns around looks at me and says, I have so much joy in my heart in fact I have so much music in my heart I just want to sing. I was busy being in the bad neighbourhood of my mind, I looked at this lady and I said to myself what the hell just happened.

I politely asked her to repeat herself and she said “I have so much music in my heart I want to sing for the Lord”. Obviously having just been in my bad space I said to her I have no music in my heart at the moment. With that she turned around looked at me and smiled and started sing for me about having joy, the love of Christ through music in the heart. Upon finishing the song, she told me I don’t blame you for not having any music in your heart because things have changed so much so since she was a young girl. She said I can tell you this because I am 87 years old. I looked at her and said no way can you be that old. This woman had the body of a 70 year old and the spirit of a happy child. In fact reflecting upon this woman now, I can say I was jealous of the joy she seemed to have in abundance.

With that she continued singing the song for me until in finished. With which she looked at me and said I have seen so much in this life time I am ready to go home. Of cause, I was a bit slow to get her drift as I saw her walk away towards the table to have her soup in peace. I think she was telling me that she has lived a full life if she passed on now she would have no regrets.  In her absence from my side, I suddenly started asking myself who was I to have a heavy heart when even old 87 olds who has clearly seen more was not complaining. This woman has lived almost three life times compared to me yet she had the joy that even I didn’t have. In that moment I told myself to snap out of it because, I had not seen as much as this woman had in my life so I had no reason whatsoever to be this gloom.