thoughts on joy

I read somewhere once (I have looked everywhere – in my house- and can’t seem to find the book or article) about the link between sorrow and joy. The scriptures state that we have sorrow that we may know joy, men are that they may have joy, that the pain was horrible but that the joy was exquisite. In this piece it was explained that the potential for joy is equivalent to the potential to sorrow. Therefore the greater the joy, the greater the sorrow. I try to picture it like an outline of myself. I plug in the amount of sorrow that I feel that I am experiencing at that time and then color it blue, sometimes I sub categorize – spouse purple, kids pink (sometimes they are numerous colors, house, money, etc. Sometimes it looks like a thermal scan. Then I recite the teaching of Elder Maxwell “Righteous sorrow and suffering carve cavities in the soul that will become later reservoirs of joy.” Or I think of the scripture from Alma’s experience. And I take all that sorrow and afflictions and color it red (all red there’s no variations). That brings me hope. I may not feel that way immediately but I believe that this is a law and will happen. The sorrow is preparation for the joy that will come later. “Kahlil Gibran put it this way: “your joy is your sorrow unmasked.” When times of sorrow are upon us, if we are faithful, the Lord will help us unmask the sorrow. The blessings of joy are behind adversity’s disguise. They’re often hiding, masked, like a buried treasure or hidden springs of water. And to find what is buried, we must endure and keep digging, sometimes with very hard, deep digging, even pick and shovel work. And we don’t always recognize the treasure when we’ve found it, covered with grit – another layer of the mask.” (Covenant Hearts by Bruce C Hafen) Nowhere is this principle – the link of sorrow and joy – more evident than at this time in my life. Notice the scripture 2 Nephi 2:23-25 – no children, no misery, and no joy! Children and family has the highest potential for joy of anything on this earth. I believe it was designed to be that way. So reason stands that they also have the greatest potential for sorrow. No where better in life is that demonstrated then during the child rearing years. And I know that although it seems bad now that it’s going to be far worse when they become teenagers – I’m not really looking forward to that. They are the source of insanity and the center of my world. They drive me crazy but I can’t stand to be away from them. One day I know I will find their antics joyful, hilarious and will miss them, but today they are stressful, sometimes discouraging, and humbling. As I have thought about joy I have seen more clearly the difference between joy and happiness. Joy is always there; we just don’t always feel it or recognize it. It is cumulative. Joy is like weight – they say that fat weighs more than muscle. Joy does weigh more than sorrow. So a little bit of joy goes a long way. Sometimes we have to workout our joy muscles, but that just means lifting more weights, sometimes we lift them in sorrows and sometimes we lift them in joys, but the effect is the same. We increase in strength, and stature and the world and our selves look a whole lot better.