Permission To Be Happy

I used to wait to be happy.
I was waiting until...

The nightly news stopped showing tragedies...
The world felt like a better, kinder place...
My daughter was home safe upstairs and not out driving...
My husband was in a great mood...
My house was clean from attic to basement...
Everybody at church liked me...
We had lots of thin green dollars in the bank...
I felt 100% healthy...
The sun was shining and warm...
And I did everything right...


Then one day it hit me--
I was postponing happiness.

I was waiting for all my ducks to be in a row--
When those ducks would forever be spread out upon the pond--
Never, ever in a straight line.

So I began giving myself permission to be happy--
In the middle of an imperfect afternoon.

Happiness was for right now
Because right now God is good--
And He provides joy, even now, in the midst
Of turbulent times.
And He gives me permission, too, to be happy.

And that has made all the difference.


***
"...to give to them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified..." ...Isaiah 61:3

"These things I have spoken unto you, that in me you might have peace. In the world you will have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." ... John 16:33