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Last week was the unofficial "babymoon" and a sort-of last minute vacation before things get really hairy around here. The destination: Happiest Place on Earth. At least, that's what the hubby calls it. He has been to Disney so many times that he could be a tour guide. While I enjoy the place, I can't say I have the same passion for the sprawling kid-town as he does. I wondered how this much needed vacay would prove to be relaxing. I was thinking crowds and heat and lines and kids everywhere (We went sans-toddler!) But, as the bus pulled up to the "Pacific Northwest," I think I finally got some of that inexplicable giddiness. There are no worries; there are no plans; there is no rush; there is no stress. There is only magic. The magic of being a kid again. The magic of enjoying each moment as it comes. The magic of new experiences. The magic of friendship. And I realized something important: sometimes we all need a little magic in our lives. While we might not get it from the same places, we all need it. We need to know that, in the midst of all the chaos and hurt in the world, surprises of grace abound, if we are willing to look at the world "just so." And if we do this, we might be surprised to find magic, even joy waiting for us to choose them.
Henri Nouwen says it best: "Joy is what makes life worth living, but for many joy seems hard to find. They complain that their lives are sorrowful and depressing. What then brings the joy we so much desire? Are some people just lucky, while others have run out of luck? Strange as it may sound, we can choose joy. Two people can be part of the same event, but one may choose to live it quite differently than the other. One may choose to trust that what happened, painful as it may be, holds a promise. The other may choose despair and be destroyed by it. . .What makes us human is precisely this freedom of choice. Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day. It is a choice based on the knowledge that we belong to God and have found in God our refuge and our safety and that nothing, not even death, can take God away from us."
