"Joy is not the same as happiness. We can be unhappy about many things, but joy can still be there because it comes from the knowledge of God’s love for us. . . . Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day. It is a choice based on the knowledge that we belong to God and have found in God our refuge and our safety and that nothing, not even death, can take God away from us." (Henri Nouwen)

Do we have that inner conviction that God loves us for who we are and because we are his creation in whom he delights? If so, then the grace of joy is there for us to embrace. If we keep in mind the love God has for us and shares with us, then his joy should radiate in and through us. But when we fail to find our center in God and his love for us, then we look for something else to fulfill us. Yet nothing but God can. We are reminded to return and remain in our first, true love, so that his joy in us may come to fulfillment. It is a process.