Everything has a cost. Everything.
Several years ago a friend of mine - Jean Fonvielle, whom I have not seen in years and for whom I hold kind thoughts - was working at Gayfer's. Somehow her conversation with someone working there got around to she believed you never get something for nothing. The individual in question did not want her to think that and gave her a gemstone which Jean subsequently had mounted in a ring. Thus she got something for nothing, no strings attached.
But she really didn't, did she? It didn't cost her any money for the gemstone. The person who gave it to her bore that cost. She had to have it mounted, for which she had to pay. There were no strings attached to the gift of the stone, but there WERE costs attached. She only paid some of the costs.
To breathe in, you have to breathe out. See what I'm saying?
I have been blessed with a spirit of joy.
I KNOW it is a blessing. It is a gift of which I was long unaware.
So many times we walk through life completely oblivious to any and everything around us. We bury ourselves in our own limited and momentary perspective and are blind to what is right there in front of us, right there within us, right there surrounding us, upholding us, blessing us.
We sink in to our own despair and think there is nothing else. We believe that we are alone, abandoned, helpless. We believe that there is nothing more, nothing else, nothing. Nothing.
Oh, it is not the truth.
Look - I have been that sad, broken, lonely, depressed person. I have felt sure I was on my own with no help, no support, no where to turn.
That is illusion.
That is a lie from the depths of hell.
Some of you may not believe in God. Some of you may not believe in a higher power. We can be tainted by misused religion. That is a poison. It, too, comes from the pit.
What I have called my "Black Hole Year" - which is actually longer than a year - was in many ways the most difficult of my life.
It was the hardest thing I've ever done. It was scary, and I cannot adequately relate to you how much anxiety and stress wrapped themselves up in the experience so as to weave their insidious ways throughout my life.
I do believe that the cost of the spirit of joy was the depression, the sadness, the negatives.
The spirit of joy was there ALL THE TIME, but I did not know it. I could not see it. I could not feel it. I could not conceive of it.
This is true because I was allowing myself to feel and see and perceive only the darkness, the sorrow, the weight of the world and its worries.
But you see, the "black hole year", while it was difficult, came to me after I had awakened to the realization that joy was all around me, completely filling me, drowning me in its ebullience, surrounding me and uplifting me - ALWAYS.
I had chosen in my human weakness, my fearfulness and worry to see only the weakness, the fear, the anxiety when all along there was sunshine too.
How many times have you heard that it is all about attitude? Well - hello - it is ALL about attitude!
I very clearly see the unbearable sorrow that is in the world. I know it is there and that I will taste from that bitter cup again many times in my life. Nonetheless I also know that I channel joy and peace and beauty. I guard myself from that weight - I will not watch movies that cause me anxiety, nor read books nor allow people around me that cause me to come under the influence of that which is not good.
I am kind of a Pollyanna, I have discovered. Oh look at that pitcher half full, that silver lining in those gray clouds, those flowers just waiting to bloom forth, the song ready to burst out from the very earth itself!
I have further discovered that it is a wonderful thing to be that way.
I know that God is. I know that He holds me and has always done. I know that he designed and created me for His glory and purpose and to be a light in the darkness.
Everything has a cost. And many times that cost is completely worth it.
