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Last month, I shared in my post, “Insights When Life Throws You Curve Ball,  that my everyday active life had come to a screeching halt because of a health condition known as sciatica, and I was undergoing further medical tests.  These procedures showed a severe illness, a fractured vertebra caused by osteoporosis. 

I have had this condition for years and took the recommended preventive measures.  In the past, if this had happened, I would probably be confined to a wheelchair and assisted living. Fortunately, a new drug that builds—not just preserves—bones is available. It requires a daily injection and careful monitoring.  

Since my health has become a top priority, I am working on providing you with motivational and inspirational information with the time I now have.  In December, I will let you know what that includes and provide you with a means of getting resources and news you can use as Ladies of a certain age, those invisible, powerful, dynamic women. 

For now, I am  providing you with a slightly revised blog I wrote in 2017 entitled “A Box of Joy.” It is a powerful message for us today, no matter what we are dealing with.

A Box Of Joy

Just picture this: In the balcony of a historic theater, eight screaming, gyrating ladies of a certain age, whirling in the air above their heads, glow sticks, smiling, giggling, little kids staring at them while their parents grinned.  Got the picture?  What’s going on here?  Well, let me tell you, as one of those ladies swiveling her sticks, I can say to you I was honest-to-goodness elated at a family rock concert I attended in my town.  

It dawned on me that I genuinely felt happy: I felt joy!

The next morning, while I was having breakfast, I glanced out the window, and there was an incredibly and strikingly beautiful site:  My big (90 pounds, mind you!) beloved tan and black Airedale Terrier, named Bonnie Buttercup, sitting on the grass strew with yellow leaves from my neighbor’s cottonwood tree.  A golden light from the newly risen sun shone on her and the fallen leaves.  

I grabbed my phone to take her picture and rushed out the back door, wearing my lavender robe and red-plaid slippers, and snapped her picture.  This is no pun: It was a golden moment.

Scurrying back inside, I viewed the pictures I had just taken. Then, my finger slid over the phone, and I saw photos from the Fisher Towers hike I had taken a few days before.  The architecture of those rocks in eastern Utah is as fabulous as any manmade structures I have seen in my entire life.  

Later that day, when I was cleaning out one of my gardens, I came across three eggplants that had not perished in our mild frosts.  Then, I found a few red tomatoes and some basil.  I was ecstatic: I realized I could have one of my favorite dinners that night: fresh tomato sauce with eggplant on egg fettuccini.   

The following morning, while sitting at that same window drinking coffee and writing in my journal, which I do each day, I realized something astonishing was happening to me.  I had felt moments of ecstasy – pure, unaltered joy – for the past 48 hours.  “If only I could capture it!” I thought.  I knew I couldn’t, but then I thought, “I could put these happy memories in a box.  Yes, it is one of those special boxes that have served me well over the years. “

Maybe 30 years ago or so, someone suggested getting a God Box. The purpose of such a container was to hold pieces of Paper with the enormous perplexing problems written on them that I had been unable to resolve.  “Perhaps a power greater than yourself could solve them for you, Elizabeth, if you would just let go,” this friend told me.  I got a little box and decoratively painted it inside and out.  On the underside of the lid, I wrote, “Let go and let God.”  I still use that box today.  Many of my problems stored in that box have been fixed without my help, and many of the issues I have just learned to live with.  

Several years later, another friend told me she had a slightly different type of box, A Joy Box.  To her amazement, she kept slips of paper with notes on them about her colossal concerns that had been taken care of.  “I look in this box, Elizabeth, whenever I think nothing will ever happen or nothing good will ever happen.  The memories remind me that things can and do work out, particularly when I get out of my way.” 

How many times, I reflected, have I felt I was doomed?  Then, I remembered some of these contemplations had turned out great.  I bought a pretty little green box lined in velvet several days later.  When I feel overwhelmed or even in despair, I rush to that box, pull out one of the many slips of paper, and read it. The Box of Joy holds my unique jewels, brilliant gems I can look at whenever life is dull or downright ugly.  

Copyright – Elizabeth J. Wheeler – November 1, 2023