I am reading Champagne For The Soul: Rediscovering God's Gift of Joy by Mike Mason, and I'm not sure yet what I make of it. But it has made me examine my experience of the kind of joy that is everlasting, maybe even abiding.

Is joy a cloak I can pull tighter
when I face fierce stormy winds
some of which blow through the fabric
but cannot chill me to the bone?

Or is joy more like a foundation 
I stand strong on, and unshaken,
until rocked so badly that I fall,
and though fallen I still cling?

Or is joy an inner treasure
though an earthen jar contains it
with a cracked and nicked appearance
as it wears through daily use?

As I shake it out to see it,
as I test its firm endurance,
as I peer inside to see it shine
I'm just thankful that it's there.
-HJ Apr. 16, 2011