Friday Afternoon Joy (03/28/2026)

Yesterday afternoon as I was driving home, I turned a corner and activity in a nearby yard caught my eye. A young girl was jumping up and down in her front yard, clapping with joy. And then I spotted the man getting out of the truck in front of the house. He, too, was smiling quite broadly, as he closed his truck door and quickly walked to the sidewalk where the young girl ran to meet him. It made me smile. Joy is so contagious.

I’d noticed the same phenomenon earlier that day at the market when I’d been there. The store employee was smiling broadly as she walked up to help bag at the checkout. As she passed the customers along her way, she greeted them with such a warm and authentic smile. And even the face of the man whom I was sure hadn’t smiled since New Year’s softened into an upward curve.

As I continued my drive home, my mind floated back some 50 years to an amazing man who I swear was always joyful, no matter what. He was retired. He lived behind us in Austin, Minnesota. He spent his free time in his garage creating stables of all sizes for nativity sets and then he gave them away for free. He gave me one when we moved to the neighborhood that year. I commented on his joy once and he told me, “Love does that and I know I am loved by the LORD every day.”

I must admit that truth has stuck with me. And when I encounter a grouch, I realize they don’t know this piece of good news even though it isn’t a secret. Joy comes when we know the LORD’s love and it carries us even through the toughest of times, it is the resiliency we get when we believe.

We are coming up on the most holy week of our Christian year, and while it has moments and even days when we recall the suffering of our LORD, we make that walk in joy because we know that Easter is coming, we know that all of this was for love. And the joy we will express on Easter isn’t just about that one day, it is the gift of knowing that the LORD loves us powerfully every day.  

May our faces reveal to the world what our minds and hearts and souls know – We are loved beyond measure by our LORD whom we love with all our being.

Until tomorrow, let us all love well.