SEARCHING FOR JOY

Finding Joy

Recently, I was listening to some old songs from the years when I was young. As I listened to them (they came on as I failed to man the tv), I realized that there was an underlying sadness in my life during those years. I looked much better than I do now. My body functioned much better than it does now. I had many years ahead of me that could be used to realize my dreams. Yet, despite these things, I felt sad most of the time. I married a man (I felt) I fell in love with the moment I saw him, but the marriage did not end the feeling of sadness that I felt most of the time. This sadness was also accompanied by a feeling of anxiousness. A dread of bad things not foreseen happening to me. I did not have a personal relationship with the Lord even though I prayed from time to time.

Even though I am sure I must have heard the gospel many times, it had not resonated with me. I had not said the sinner’s prayer, asking Jesus to forgive me of my sins and to come into my life. The truth is, I was not aware that I needed to say that specific prayer. As the years went by and I committed more sins, I felt that God was so displeased with me that there was no possibility of being close to Him. I kept checking out various religions trying to see if any had an answer to my dilemma.

My marriage ended. It was probably as much his fault as it was mine. I was not a particularly good wife. I really did not know how to be. I was living in the flesh and doing the will of the flesh despite my best efforts. When I left him, it felt as if I had cut off my right arm. I felt, however, that I needed to do it in order to preserve myself. I lived by myself without a car or a telephone. I learned what it feels like to be lonely. I kept telling myself that better days were coming. My yearning for the Lord did not diminish, it increased.

One day, as I walked in Manhattan, where I worked, a neighbor whom I took the bus with from our development in New Jersey, spoke with me. I had been running into him in the most unusual ways. When I saw him walking towards me on the street in Manhattan, I laughed; it seemed so uncanny that I kept bumping into him. We decided to have lunch together. He wrote down the sinner’s prayer and told me he had said it and I should say it if I wanted to get saved. God had placed him in my path so he could deliver that message to me.

I said the prayer and told my ex that I had. When I told my ex, I felt a weight lifted from my shoulders I did not know I had been carrying. A feeling of peace also swept over me. I knew that I had found the way to the Lord.

The peace that I experience now is so much better than the sadness and anxiety I felt in my younger days when I did not know the Lord. Today, I have access to God, I know that my prayers are heard, I know that I have His protection, I know that He provides for me, I know that one day I will spend eternity with Him. I would not trade this inner peace for the world.