Stewards of Joy

The Squires are living well these days:  today is Mr. Squire's last day of school, and he has been smiling, laughing, and joking more and more every day this past week, and taking lots of photos of his kids.  Work hasn't been too crazy for me, so while I am plenty busy, I'm not overwhelmed.  We've been attending many weddings (and still have many to go), and enjoying reunion after reunion with various family, law school friends, college friends, church friends from Boston, church friends from here in New York, old roommates, etc.  Mr. Squire is settling into a new role in church as a leader of the small-group leaders, and I'm continuing a lot of my informal meetings with various women, and seeing God use my past experiences to help identify with what other women are going through.  We ourselves are healthy, our parents and siblings are (on the whole) doing quite well, and of course we are delighted with each other and continue to build a strong, joyful marriage.  (And Mr. Squire keeps playing softball for my firm's team, and winning.)  We have a lot of good things going on, and a lot of joy flowing in and through our lives.

At the same time...certain members of our church family have been going through a particularly rough period lately.  Someone's older brother committed suicide recently.  A young mother gave birth to her first child--who promptly passed away.  We knew it was going to happen, but we've been praying for a miracle for months, and God in His wisdom saw fit not to grant our requests.  Others around us are going through difficult breakups, or uncertainty in their lives. 

These events, to varying degrees, have left a pall of shadows upon our otherwise sunny wall.  And one thought that keeps coming back to my mind is that we who have been blessed with inordinate amounts of joy have a duty (and should also have a concomitant desire) to be "stewards of our joy" by shouldering an inordinate proportion of the burdens of those around us.  It's like with money:  those who are blessed with financial abundance should shoulder an inordinate proportion of the financial burdens of those who were given less financial means--that's part of financial stewardship.  Why should not the same be true for joy?  

I think we've been doing this--or have been trying to, anyway--through daily prayers, staying in touch through email, and offering to meet up and just be with our brothers and sisters who are going through tough times.  I keep thinking that there's more, though.  More we can do, and more we should do.  I've been praying for wisdom on this.  My prayers appears to have returned empty (so far) with respect to other tangible things to do in support, but at the very least, this concept of stewardship has formulated pretty well.  We're not to hoard our joy into a happy little bundle and enjoy the warmth of our fire, cozying up to it and to each other in an insular circle.  Rather, we who have a huge bonfire are to make extra efforts to share the warmth of the fire--not just inviting others to the circle, but also going so far as to form torches and multiply the fire and bring it to places that have none (or less).

So may our lives be!  Lord, help us.