Finding Joy in the Mundane

 I have Found Joy in Simple Things

by Grace Noll Crowell

I have found joy in simple things

A plain clean room, a nut-brown loaf of bread,

A cup of milk, a kettle as it sings,

The shelter of a roof over my head,

And in a leaf-laced square along the floor,

Where yellow sunlight glimmers through a door.

I have found such joy in things that fill

my quiet days: a curtain's blowing grace

A potted plant upon my sill,

A rose fresh-cut and placed within a vase,

A table cleared, a lamp beside a chair,

And books I have long loved beside me there.

We are a week ahead than most churches on our Advent themes as we are having a Christmas play on the 24th. So we decided to go ahead and start with the Advent candles and themes the Sunday after Thanksgiving.

This past Sunday we lit the candle of joy and Dan spoke on having joy in the midst of our mundane, hard lives. The reality is no matter what people say, joy is difficult at times. Dan asked the question, "Is joy being happy all the time or is it something else?" His style of preaching is to not always give us the answer because God is going to speak differently to each of us. And he also wants us to think about and wrestle with these things.

The above poem popped up in my Facebook memories this morning and I've shared it here before. I think joy comes when we can learn to appreciate and find God in the little day to day moments. If we are looking for the big events or the next exciting thing to give us joy we probably won't be very joyful. Because those things do not happen very often. Most of life is hard.

But if we can learn to find joy in the small and simple things we find a gift because we can learn to be content. And I do think that is a better definition of joy -- contentment with God, contentment with our circumstances and contentment with ourselves.

Yesterday, I found joy in the following mundane things:

🙌 Cleaning out a baptismal as we prepare for our first baptism in this church.

🙌 Shopping for little craft kits for the little ones at church to keep them occupied during this week's service.

🙌 Wrestling with God's word as I prepare a message.

🙌 Making little party favors for our Christmas banquet on Sunday.

🙌 Connecting with fellow team members over a zoom call.

🙌 Making Pepparkakor dough for the first batch of Christmas cookies (a little late on Christmas baking this year).

🙌 Cooking a nourshing meal for my family.

These were all little mundane things but I did find contentment in doing them. And as I look back over the day yesterday, I did feel joyful.

Finding God's contentment no matter what is going on in my life is a way to have joy. And that revelation brings me joy today.