Small Joys

January and February are as grim and grey as November and December, but without the prospect of municipally-funded fairy lights bedecking our streets and squares. Up in Orkney and Shetland, the most northerly realms of our United Kingdom, the winters are bleaker than most. Grey seems to be everywhere painted, even on some people’s faces. Imagine my joy, therefore, when I saw some flowering hebe poking through a bush. It was not much, but it offered what cheer it could.

Do not despise small comforts and tiny joys. One ounce of happiness is worth a pound of sorrow. One hour with Jesus Christ is weightier than a lifetime’s worth of tragedy and hardship. So thank God for those little hints of heaven afforded to us while through this vale of tears we wander, and forget not your final destination:

Each one appears before God in Zion. Ps 84:7