Where is Joy?

WHERE IS JOY? I climb tall mountains; there is beauty, where is joy? I tread through thunderous deserts…finding bursts of color, Rocky crags of fire, and trees of pure gold. But, where is joy? I ride the rampant rolling rivers and feel the pleasant power beneath me. There is refreshing, rowdy, fantastic and fearful fun…but I cannot find but glimpses of joy in living now. Happiness has been hiding, for so many long years; I seek, but cannot find it. I was young yet, when my Father walked away into eternity. I wept. Joy walked away with him into the emptiness of time and space. I lost their faces; joy was gone, walking away with my Father. Life at home become nothingness. And I was swallowed up by it. I cut away pieces of emptiness’s heart but could not find my own. She would not die, where had Joy gone? Into emptiness? Into nothingness? into pain... I doesn’t really matter, she’s gone; it’s still the same. I go through the motions I work, and I climb every mountain hoping I can see joy, somewhere... But she is not there. Then one day joy returned as she placed my small son in my arms. Joy was back; and my heart began to sing again! There was music in his laugh, every new thing he did, there was joy! He tugged on my heart strings and my heart made the most beautiful music I had ever felt; it was the language of love, it was Joy! He, became my world, my joy, what I lived and worked for every day. I had searched for joy, and he was given to me. He even looked like my father. He had held my father’s hand in that nothingness; before he came to me, bringing joy with him. Then, at ten, when I needed him the most He was gone. I grasped for him, trying to call him back. He walked away into death. He was gone. Joy has left my life and taken him away. I was ever empty of it again. Death; again a thief; had stolen joy from me. So, I climb higher mountains, muscles burning, stomach churning, Looking for it again, but joy is not there. I wade through thunderous, tumultuous desert winds blowing sand rent and red. Searching, searching, there is no joy, no happiness. I can see that beauty is there when the winds of my heart are still Beauty is here, but I find no joy. The river rides run rampantly, raging; I row, trying to keep the boat right. Joy is not there, no happiness to be found when the ride is over. I am an old man; shall I ever face joy again? Do I believe she exists anymore? Where? Where can I find the one thing God made me for? Is it here…somewhere? Or, in a place I have left to find. I will search my mind, maybe… just maybe in memories mulling around in that lonely place , I might find that joy is really hiding there. IlaMae Stucki