9 9 22

Up early, feel great!  Despite being convinced yesterday I caught covid again.  I DID NOT go into fear.  Do not fear…. Thank you very much, don’t mind if I don’t…

Whatever this is, it’s fine.  Today I feel totally fine.  I took a Covid test: negative.  Yesterday ‘it’ hit me around 4 pm:  bone chills, aches, headache, exhausted, diarrhea, but no cough or sore throat.  As soon as I felt icky I just stopped and laid down.  I went to bed sure that it was Covid because someone living next door has the exact same symptoms and they tested positive (2 days ago). But I heard spirit say test in the morning so I went to be early and this morning I feel un-sick.  Flash flu?  Miracle? I guess if you’re going to get sick for the first time in 25 years, might as well get it all over with at once.

Snarky.  I actually don’t feel snarky this morning.  I feel blessed and, good.  Grateful.  I don’t know how you go from that sick to totally fine in 12 hours, but I’ll take it. 

I heard something…it’s floating in..oh there it is, I was listening to Ecclesiastes last night as I fell asleep and the last thing I remember is the best explanation for the meaning of life I have ever heard.   I wasn’t sure I heard it right, so I just read it:

Ecc 18-20  Here is what I have seen to be good:  it is appropriate to eat, drink and experience good in all the labor one does under the sun during the few days of his life God has given him, because that is his reward.  God has also given riches and wealth to every man, and He has allowed him to enjoy them, take his reward and rejoice in his labor.  This is a gift of God, for he does not often consider the days of his life because God keeps him occupied with the joy of his heart. 

…Occupied with the joy of his heart.  I immediately thought of writing.  I’ve been doing it for years.  I love it, I need it.  The world teaches you that your skill or your gift or the thing you love to do should be used for gain; to make money, acquire wealth, or prestige, or friends… But God says He gives it to you so that you may experience joy.  What a fantastic benchmark. 

Did it bring you joy?

Then what are you complaining about?

It’s not that there is anything wrong with the thing you love to do leading to wealth, etc, it’s just that we forget the value of Joy.  What I appreciate about Ecc is that someone way richer, more powerful, etc., than me who acquired all the stuff and things and then some has come to the same conclusion:  joy is the point.  Your joy brings joy.  That is God’s gift.  Stuff and things do not give you joy—in fact stuff and things can lead to more misery, and often does. Ecc asks what is the point of all this?  This being life.  We work—we strive—to build wealth or gain or prestige or status….and what does life amount to?  The rich man dies naked the same as the poor man. Poof.

Eat.  Drink.  And be merry.  Follow God’s will, be a good person, give to others, experience much:  the point of life is to experience fully the gift you have been given. You’re not here because God needs you to make a lot of money.  Or design the next widget. You’re here because God loves you and you have been gifted with time on planet earth.

Don’t die miserable. That seems as good of an objective as any.  Because when you’re done, who really knows God’s ways, or what happens to you.  We all have our convictions about what’s next.  But who would argue that a life of joy is a life wasted?