A Prayer for When Joy Feels Far Away

Lord, I remember joy the way you remember a place you visited long ago, fondly, but unable to find the road back. Other people laugh and I watch from behind glass, going through the motions of a happiness I cannot actually feel. It seems to live on the far side of a river I cannot cross.

I confess I have started to envy others their lightness, and then to resent myself for not being able to manufacture my own. Pretending to be fine has become its own kind of exhausting.

So I stop pretending and turn to You, who do not require me to perform joy before I am allowed to come close.

I am not asking You to flip a switch. I am asking You to keep the door to joy unlocked, so that when I am ready and able, I can find my way back through it. Give me glimpses, small ones, a warm cup, a kind word, a moment of beauty that slips past my guard.

Your word says that in Your presence there is fullness of joy, and that weeping may last the night but joy comes with the morning. I trust the morning is still coming, even if I cannot see it yet.

I surrender my joyless season into Your patient hands. Do not rush me, but do not leave me here forever. Keep the lamp on. Joy and I will meet again on the road You are walking me down. Amen.