I plunged my hands in soapy dishwater and went into automatic pilot as usual when washing dishes: Stare through the dirty window above the kitchen sink, wash a glass, rinse it off, put it in the drainer. A plate now. Wash, rinse, repeat.
A flurry of activity on my patio-birds feasting on seed I'd scattered. And not just one bird-seven!
After wiping my sudsy hands on my jeans, I reached for my binoculars. Then I scrambled to the kitchen table and grabbed a scrap of paper. "January 2, 2016-Saw juncos, mourning doves, a blue jay, and a red-bellied woodpecker on our patio this morning!" After adding a smiley face, I dropped the slip of paper into the vase on the table. Success! I'd just recorded my first "joy jolt" of the new year.
A month earlier, Melody* had e-mailed me from California. "Look what I found on Facebook," she wrote. She attached a picture of something called a "happiness jar." "You jot down things that make you happy throughout the year and put them in a jar," she wrote. "On December 31, you take them out and read all your happy thoughts from the year. What do you think?"
I thought it sounded like a fun way to connect with my friend across the miles. "Let's do it!" I wrote back.
My plan was simple. Since I'd been keeping a journal for several years, I would date my joy jolts as I wrote them and then tape them in my journal at the end of the year on the dates they occurred.
Nature sightings always made it in the jar, but so did other moments.
When our 9-month-old grandson waved goodbye to me for the first time, I dabbed my tears first and then added that precious moment to my joy jar.
The next day, our 3-year-old grandson announced, "I'm so excited, Grandma! I can turn on the hall lights by myself!" Boom. Another joy jolt.
We also Skyped our daughter and her husband in New Zealand that month, and I signed up for a writing class. Both events made it to the joy jar. By January's end, I counted 21 slips of paper in my jar.
Then life picked up speed, and my joy jar gathered dust.
In May, I drove to the office for a Monday meeting. Fluffy clouds dotted the blue skies, and I made a mental note to add this gorgeous sight to my joy jar. A perfect day.
Inside the office, my cell phone buzzed. It was Kate from church, sending a group text: "Sean isn't feeling well. Meeting him at the hospital. Could be his heart. Please pray."
Kate's husband had heart issues? I didn't know that. It's probably nothing. He's only 52. Still, I prayed. Lord, please be with Sean. Give the doctors wisdom. Keep him safe.
All through the meeting, I checked the clock and continued my silent prayers. When I returned to my desk, another text from Kate awaited me: "Emergency! Crash cart!"
My heart dropped. Praying at lightning speed now, words tumbled out as fast as I could push them. Please, God! Please help Sean. Keep him safe and make the doctors know what to do!
My brain felt jumbled. The seconds dragged. I checked my phone. Nothing. I continued praying. Checked my phone again.
Then a buzz. This time from Diane. "I'm so sorry to tell you all, but Sean just died."
I burst into tears. Somehow, I sputtered the details to my boss, and he urged me to go home.
The days following were a blur. A lump lodged in my throat, but I conjured a smile and dry eyes around the grandkids.
Grief consumed me, and joy was the last thing on my mind. I resented the jar on our kitchen table. I abandoned my binoculars.
My husband, Dennis, and I had already planned a weekend getaway for our wedding anniversary, but it had only been a week since Sean's death. My mind and heart felt numb.
"We'll go and take it easy," Dennis told me. "We don't have to be tourists."
Reluctantly, I agreed.
We had booked a tree house cabin; I packed my binoculars for just in case.
That first night, I focused on a doe, just yards from our deck. She was pregnant! I found paper and scrawled, "May 12-Saw a pregnant doe in the woods outside our tree house cabin."
My eyes brimmed. My first joy jolt since Sean's death. I tucked the scrap of paper into my purse to drop in my jar at home.
The last morning of our stay, Dennis and I sipped our coffee on the back deck, my binoculars ready. We took turns searching for birds and squirrels. Then, a rustling below. I scanned the floor of the woods slowly, carefully. The spring green of the trees and shrubs shrouded my view. I took deep, slow breaths and held the binoculars steady.
Then I saw it. A doe . . . and something else. What was that? I adjusted my lenses. Waited quietly. Waited some more. And gasped. A newborn fawn! Hunkered in the bushes.
I shoved the binoculars at Dennis, and ran inside for a pen and paper. Thank you, Lord. I needed that!
At home, I added both joy jolts to my jar and prayed that the worst of the year had come and gone.
Melody and I e-mailed weekly. She added to her jar at a steady pace, but my pace was slower. Still, we kept on together, and Melody's updates encouraged me to look for joy where I could.
In July, Melody's husband, Aaron, went in for heart-valve surgery. When I asked for details, she wrote, "The doctor says Aaron should be home in five days and back at work in three weeks."
Three days after surgery, though, Melody texted me: "Complications. Please pray. Aaron is sedated, and they can't wake him up! When they try to bring him out, he starts fighting them. I don't know what's happening! Please pray!"
My heart pounded. This felt all too familiar. Oh, God. Help!
Even after his nine days of sedation, Aaron still had to spend six horrifying weeks in intensive care. I existed on pins and needles all summer, waiting to hear a morsel of good news from Melody and praying from 1,800 miles away. Thankfully, Aaron started improving and finally made it home.
Despite this respite, my worries over Kate and Melody had already done their damage and had clouded my perspective.
The joy jar still took up space on my kitchen table. But what was the point of paying attention to joy? Was there such a thing during times like this? I worried daily about my friends who had endured so much. On top of that, natural disasters across the world were becoming the norm on the nightly news, and people all over Facebook begged 2016 to hurry up and end already.
I couldn't figure out how to help anyone-not me or my friends. But I had responsibilities-family and work. So I woke up every day and did the best I could and asked God to help me.
The afternoon of December 31, I pulled out my journal to thumb through the year as I always did. Inside, I had taped pictures and cards and notes from friends from throughout the year. Now I needed to close the loop on my joy jar and add my little slips of paper. If nothing else, at least I could report to Melody that I had finished with her, as I promised.
I plopped in the middle of the floor in front of the Christmas tree and dumped the contents of my joy jar. Forty-three pieces of paper-far fewer than my optimistic self had estimated when I started the project.
The first one I picked up read, "November 4, 2016-Enjoyed the gorgeous sunrise with Dennis. A pink-and-blue-striped sky." I smiled, flipped to November in my journal, and taped the scrap of paper like a flap on that date.
Working through the whole pile, I taped each joy jolt where it belonged in the year. Soon, my back and hunched shoulders ached.
Almost done. Only two left.
The first one read, "Watched a hawk swoop into my neighbor's yard and gobble up three snakes!" That was a fun memory. Although I had identified a lot of birds, I had never seen a hawk in our neighborhood. Flipping in my journal, I taped the memory on top of my September 7 journal page where I had written, "I feel like I'm scraping the bottom, spiritually. My heart feels like concrete infested with weeds. And not even weeds like dandelions, which at least have flowers! Lord, help."
Wait a minute.
That sighting happened the same time my heart felt like stone? I double-checked the date before taping the joy jolt in my journal. Yep. It belonged right there. The contradiction unnerved me.
I opened the final slip: the one about the doe and her baby. My heart warmed as I remembered that newborn fawn. I flipped to the page in my journal where it belonged- the day of Sean's memorial. My eyes filled with tears.
"What's going on, Lord?" I cried. "Did I live on a roller coaster this year?"
As I wrestled with myself in God's presence, I rifled through my journal and studied my entries. In my mind, 2016 had been a no-good, very bad year.
But there-waving from those pages, layered in between the mess of 2016-were those unmistakable nuggets of felt joy.
Little white flags of surrender.
I'd only remembered the sadness, frustrations, and anger of the year. But now the joy jar opened its secret to me, and I felt something new: awe.
I sat in holy wonder, bathed in the light of the Christmas tree. Scissors and tape and an empty joy jar on the floor in front of me.
Jesus-Emmanuel, which means God with us.
With me.
Not just at Christmas, but all along. Showing up for me in 2016 as scraps of white paper, comforting me and sending me joy jolts to keep my heart alive, even through all the awful and ugly. Even when I didn't realize it was Him. I prayed, Lord, thank You that You never left me. Never left us. Forgive me for not paying attention to the mercies You sent so faithfully throughout the year. Help me pay better attention every day next year.
I placed the empty vase on the kitchen table, a pen and pile of fresh paper scraps next to it.
Now I was ready for another year.
Heather Trent Beers writes from her farm in Missouri, where she and her husband enjoy watching their chickens and the sunsets. Heather's work has been published in Focus on the Family, local lifestyle magazines, and in Guideposts compilation books. By writing, she hopes she can fulfill her wish of showing people how much God loves them.
