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Previous Challenge Entry (Level 1 – Beginner)
Topic: Happy (07/12/07)
What is happiness? It is oh so many things on any given day. It surprises you when you least expect it, confounds you and restores your faith that there is good in the world. The question remains: what is it?

Happiness is watching your child’s face light up with discovery or pleasure. Sometimes happiness is just watching your child’s face as she reads, thinks profound little girl thoughts, or sleeps.

Happiness is finally getting the job done right. Yet, happiness is knowing you did your best, realizing you have learned from your mistakes, and will do better next time.

Happiness is climbing over that rickety fence without getting splinters or a hole in your pants from an old nail. Of course, it is also happiness when the splinter is finally out or the hole stitched so it hardly shows in your favorite pair of jeans. My daughter thinks happiness IS the hole in the jeans.

Happiness is waking up to sunshine on the day you hoped to go for a long bike ride when the forecast was for rain the night before. It can also be waking up to cloudy skies and raindrops and deciding you will not melt, and pedal off on an adventure anyway.

Happiness is finding a new recipe you want to try for the get together with friends and having everyone beg you for the recipe afterwards. It is also coming home with a three by five card in your hand for a recipe that made your taste buds sing.

Happiness is filling pages with words that matter and make a difference in a life. Then again, great happiness is found in a blank page full of potential and nary a typo or grammatical error.

Happiness is a quiet afternoon by yourself with just your thoughts, a journal and a good book. Still, hours later, it is the door opening to the chatter and rush of the family returning home to you.

Happiness is the balance of life. It is embracing and celebrating the triumphs and standout moments: births, accomplishments, victories. The essence of happiness is reveling in the mundane of daily life: mistakes corrected with eraser marks showing through, tie games and quiet afternoons that are unremarkable.

Happiness is. . . hard to write about today as I watch my friend go through a valley so deep it hurts just to think about it. Happiness is hard to have when I feel I am betraying that friend by experiencing it, even while I know she would wish those around her every happiness. It is on days like today when I need to remember, and encourage her, that happiness is in more than just glad circumstances. The hand of God soothes us with happiness in deep pain and sorrow in the simple things.

My friend, if you are reading this now, I pray that God’s hand caresses you with these words and brings happiness as a balm. I pray this with my unceasing prayer that you will continue to stand up under the burden He has trusted you to bear in the power of His might.
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Member Comments
Member
Date
Joanne Sher 
07/21/07
This brought many, many smiles to my face. I love the voice of this. The last two paragraphs were extremely poignant.
Dianne Janak
07/22/07
I loved this also, and like Joanne, the last two paragraphs really touched me. Everyone needs to have a friend as loving as the voice in this piece...