What do you do when life hands you really difficult moments? Where do you look for joy? Sometimes it is easy to think that it is not possible to be joyful when times are hard.

But if we are planning on moments of joy being part of our lives, then we will find the joy. Sometimes it may only be a moment of joy and at other times there may be many such moments.

I recently had several difficult things happen and they coincided with a trip to visit my granddaughters who live south of me. My planner includes a page that intentionally asks me to plan a moment of joy. One particular day I was not sure what exactly that moment would be or if I would be able to find one.

I made a trip to see my eldest granddaughter in her new apartment space near Xavier University. I took my youngest graddaughter along with me on the visit. Since it was nearing the lunch hour, I offered to take them all to lunch. That was not going to happen however. Instead the colege student announced that she was taking us to lunch. The first time she could do this.

We drove down the street to a small restaurant near the campus. We ate, we laughed, we had a wonderful time. After we had ordered, the youngest asked if I had a quarter. We all shared a moment of joy as she explained that she wanted to put it into the juke box at our table. Her sister explained that it no longer worked but shared how it would have worked in a different time. That time was my time. We all laughed as we looked at the music shown on the juke box and tried to figure out how anyone could hear abything when all the jukeboxes were playing different songs.

It was a special time of joy and laughter. The difficult things that lay ahead of me did not diminish the  joy one bit.

In fact, having had that wonderful time to share a meal and to laugh together made the difficult things so much easier.

Write out your plan for joy. Take a moment for joy and for gratitude every day. You will feel burdens life and be encouraged to live the next days planning4joy!