“I feel like you two need to meet,” said the text I received on the morning of August 7th, 2023 from my friend, Tana. She asked me to look for her friend, who was attending the same event I was. I met said friend at the event. We exchanged numbers and set up a coffee date for the following week. We met, and became fast friends, no…fast sisters, as we soon discovered, the Lord gave us each other to walk through individual life challenges as sisters. Friends, I would like to introduce to some, and present to others my dear sister-friend!

Sharlene Lee is a follower of Jesus and a podcast host dedicated to helping women heal, recover and rebuild their lives after surviving narcissistic abuse. Catch weekly episodes of her podcast, Life After Narcissism by clicking the link or search on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Amazon Podcasts.

I try the very best I can to be a good steward of the time God blesses me with each day. So, I’m not proud to say this blog post is very much linked to me failing at stewarding my time well. Despite my apparent time wasting, God was still gracious.

One day, quite recently in fact, I wasn’t feeling “happy.” I decided to try and help myself out of the sadness that seemed to be lurking, just waiting for me to give in to it. Despite my better judgment, I turned to YouTube to look for an episode of something sensible and meaningful I wanted to catch up on. I never made it to that episode. Instead, I got sucked into a rabbit trail of YouTube shorts. I’m sure this is something none of you every fall prey to lol. Somehow, the algorithm must have known I needed something to “make me happy,” because it presented me with heartwarming videos of children going up to strangers to hug them. All the comments agreed that children can tell those with good hearts and are drawn to such people. Having landed on this content, I felt a little less guilty about not stewarding my time well because, after all, I was watching something wholesome.

Heartwarming as the videos were, as a former educator, the videos and comments made me a little sadder as I realized I missed being around the joy children bring on a daily basis. During all of this, with the option of giving in and allowing myself to fall deep into the depths of sadness, I chose an alternative path. I said a small prayer in my heart, telling God that I wanted to be the type of person who children feel comfortable enough to approach and give hugs to so I could be a blessing to them. I also decided to pull myself together and refuse the path of sadness. I didn’t speak the prayer aloud, nor did I write it down.

A few days later, I was busy with work travel. I went from Texas to California to Kentucky, all in the space of two days. After completing my work assignment in Kentucky, I dropped my coworker at the airport; my own flight was hours later. I decided that I could not bear to spend another afternoon in an airport working while I waited for my flight. Instead, I chose to find a nice park and go for a walk to get my steps in. I found a park described as having natural springs, and I was drawn by the possibility of being someplace close to water. My excitement quickly faded when I learned that it was on the opposite side of town from where I currently was. However, when I mapped the journey, my excitement returned as I learned that the drive “across town” would only be twelve minutes; a journey across town where I live can be close to an hour. In the moment, I felt very fortunate to be in a city that was tiny in comparison to the sprawling city that I live in. With my journey mapped, I was on my way to the park, oblivious to what God had in store for me.

I often like to walk without listening to anything—to just be present, enjoy nature, and allow God to speak to me. This was one of those days. I walked the trails with God and my thoughts. As I decided to wrap up my walk and head back to my vehicle to find a nice lunch, I walked past a family—a father with three daughters—who were enjoying the trails too. I greeted the father and his elder daughter as I passed them and continued on my way, passing the younger girls as I continued along the path.

Shortly after passing the youngest of the girls, I heard some shouting. At first, it didn’t register; then I thought perhaps it was just kids being kids—but the shouting was persistent: “Hey!” “Hey!” “Come back!” “Hey!” “Wait!” “Come back!” “Wait!” I turned around just to check that everything was okay, and as I did, I saw the youngest member of the family running toward me. “Hey! Wait! I need to hug you!” she informed me.

Before I knew it, a tiny person—no older than five years old—was hugging my legs tightly, the rest of the family in awe but also beaming from ear to ear. In a split second, I glanced at her father to check if it was okay before reciprocating with a gentle squeeze. My new little friend then ran off with barely enough time for me to say, “Thank you, sweet girl.” I continued along the path back to my car, glanced back at the family—my heart and eyes full. I was happy.

Happiness can be a tricky topic. Somewhere along the way during my Christian walk, I incorrectly learned that as a follower of Jesus, I shouldn’t desire happiness but rather contentment. Contentment was said to be the desire of mature Christian people, because happiness is conditional—based on external things—whereas contentment is from within… or so I’d been told. But is that even true? In my investigations into biblical happiness I found that joy and happiness are used interchangeably. In his book Happiness: Uncovering the Secret to Everlasting Joy, Randy Alcorn writes,

What an encouragement. We must choose to view God correctly in knowing that because He Himself is Joy, if we believe we are in Him and He in us then joy and happiness are there too!

So, what does the Bible have to say about happiness? Psalm 144:15 CSB reads,

Well, the Lord is my God, so I qualify for happiness according to the scripture.

More than once, the Bible speaks about us being filled with joy. John 15:11 even speaks about Jesus Himself filling us with joy:

Suffice it to say that, it is okay to desire to be happy.

As I reflect on this experience—watching YouTube videos, feeling bad for seemingly “wasting time,” and God leading me to that particular park at that particular time—I see how He orchestrated it all. He is a God who goes out of His way to bring happiness to us. What was especially meaningful to me was that the source of joy and happiness wasn’t because I’d gotten some shiny new something or other, a designer purse, or anything material. What made the experience so meaningful to me is that the happiness was something that could have only come from God, and its value was priceless!

In that moment, I knew that El Roi, the God who sees, was confirming that He had heard and answered my prayer. But beyond that, He was showing me that my happiness does matter to Him. So, as you enter into this weekend and the weeks ahead, don’t hold back from talking to God about the things that bring you happiness and joy. He cares about even the seemingly insignificant things.

When I read this post, my mind flashed back to a delightful memory courtesy of Jehovah Jireh. Several years ago, on the morning of my birthday, I thought, I’d like to have a piece Godiva Chocolate Cheesecake today, but I wasn’t planning on getting it myself. At work that day, no one knew it was my birthday, but my supervisor walked up to me and said, “We got a bunch of desserts from Cheesecake Factory, you get to pick first!” Low and behold, there was one slice of Godiva Chocolate Cheesecake! It was confirmation that El Roi, the God who sees, saw me on my birthday! One of my best birthday gifts ever!

Friend, I’d love to hear how El Roi has seen you, and brought you happiness. Hit reply or comment below to share.

Thank you, Shar! ☺️

Until next week, friends…

Miracles + Blessings!

Brenda

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