November 26, 2017, 1:00 a.m.
So November 27, I suppose.
Pain is cleansing, I've found. It's frightening. It hurts. The happy person runs from it, but the empty person craves it. Craves something deep enough to tear through the barriers and reach the soul that's been hiding. Happiness doesn't reach far enough. Happiness is a fickle friend. Happiness glazes over the empty and tries to hide its closed doors. Sprinkles it with sugar and tells you all is well.
Pain is honest. Pain is refreshing in its honesty. Pain is healing in how it rips you to shreds and leaves you to rebuild yourself. Pain is the raw, true material of the self exposed to the elements; and pain, when allowed into all the locked doors, opens the heart to joy.
Joy is not to be confused with happiness. Joy is allowed into every room of the soul. Joy looks in on all the pain, the disaster that is the human soul, and sees it all for what it is. Joy sees the mess, touches the mess, loves the mess and hands it back to you... and when you get it back, you love it, too.
Love.
Love is light. It is something to be loved, but without loving, doors stay closed. Love is the flashlight that lets the pain in to cleanse, and love is the luminescence that introduces joy into the mayhem. Love is the author of the courage to act, and courage is the action that closes fear behind bars.
Fear is bondage.
Fear is the liar that tells us pain is wrong. Fear is the monarch that raises fences and closes doors. Fear is the dominating force that tells us to live without pain, without joy, and without light and convinces us it is enough just to be happy.
Content.
Comfortable.
Joy requires growth.
Growth requires pain.
Satan is fear.
God is love.
Christ is joy.
Men are that they might have joy.
~2 Nephi 2:25~
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