Fullness of Joy

What a surprise. 
From the looks of it,
Everything dies. 

The emptiness felt - 
Shoved down, pulled up, 
Thrown away. 

Makes room for 
Growth on a 
Brighter day. 

So though it
Looks empty, 
Joy is the real surprise. 

Its fullness 
Can’t be seen
With the eyes. 

“You make known to me the path of life; 
In your presence there is fullness of joy; 
At your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”
Psalm 16:11

For several months, creating has felt like a burden; like struggling with a stranger in the dark.

When I come to my paint or my journal, putting anything that my inner critic doesn’t immediately declare, “Bad!” feels like a distant memory.

My hands recognize creative movements as familiar, but more difficult. More calculated. More demanding. Stricter. 

It’s been many months since I’ve sat down and experienced joy by the work of being curious with paint. Through this last season, in the absence of paint, I’ve picked up poetry, or what we can call poetry-ish. I do not know anything about poetry, or poetry-ish for that matter, how to write it or even how to determine what is relatively ‘good,’ but I’ve found a tremendous amount of creative recovery in writing and being okay with being bad at it. 

As I looked out at my garden last year, my internal complainer grumbled at the weeks of work I spent digging, planting, and feeding, only to see drying, dead leaves. As the grumbling continued it inevitably spread into thoughts of how not only my flowers died, but many of my dreams for business and ministry felt like they were being held together by dying threads, too. 

I was reminded of Psalm 16 and the promise for the people of God.  

“You make known to me the path of life; 
In your presence there is fullness of joy; 
At your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”
Psalm 16:11

And I wondered, do I believe that is a right now fullness of joy? 

Am I living as though I have a beautiful inheritance? An inheritance that even death cannot separate from me? 

It’s a rich, beautiful inheritance, but it comes at the cost of death, death to my flowers and all of nature, death to myself, and death to an undeserving Savior. 

But death brings joy and joy “makes room for growth on a brighter day.”