Advent Three - When "life" gives you lemons

GRRRR

I'm in quarantine.

I'm concerned about the person whose positive test has landed her in a hospital.

And I'm a little disgusted that I've had to curtail my activities for the next few days.

I get tested twice a week so that I can visit my mother.  I have tested negative again and again.  However, I'm erring on the side of caution.  I'll get tested tomorrow and that should free me up for visits next week.  This week I'm pretty sure the plan will be Facetime visits.

To be honest, I have been vacillating between "all is well" and grrrr.  However, today is the third Sunday of Advent.  I lit the pink candle this morning. Pink to represent JOY.  

Hum.  JOY???  

I gave it some thought?  Yes, JOY.

Joy in my family - my eldest grandson expressed some concern that I should not crawl around on the floor putting the Christmas Train track together.  "I'll come do it", he said.  And while he was here, he also helped changed the windshield wipers on my car and chided me that I really need to do something about a noise that my front end is making.  I feel so very blessed by my family - he's just one of 13 (three children, three spice, and seven grands).  

Joy in my friends - I have had many sympathy cards (and one of them included 20 first-class stamps) sharing my sorrow at the loss of our brother  When I texted those I had been with this week to say that I had been exposed, I immediately got prayers of peace and healing.

Joy in my faith - As I prepared for the Bible study on Joy I found a couple of great resources.

I learned that the pink candle is also known as the shepherd's candle.  The angels told the shepherds the good news of a Saviour born in Bethlehem and it gave them great joy.  Pink is a JOYFUL color.

This quote was also meaningful to me:  "Joy is an attitude that we should adopt not because of circumstances but because we believe that God is in charge".

And that made me look for ways to find joy in my circumstances.

Over the next few days I have time to complete some projects - write thank you notes for those wonderful expressions of sympathy and address greeting cards from me to my wonderful Mandarin Museum volunteers.  I can watch all the Hallmark and Lifestyle movies that I have DVR'd and create a gift for my mother.

I'd have been looking for time to do that - if I hadn't had to quarantine.

So maybe my first expression should have been "GREAT!" 

May your life be filled with enough Sunshine 

to make you appreciate the Shadow