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TechnoratiI want to skip over to Genesis 4: 25 for a moment Abel was murdered. Cain was banished as punishment. Then Eve had another baby. Here’s what the Bible tells us: “She bare a son, and called his name Seth” Eve said “For God hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew” (Genesis 4: 25, K.J.V.).
If you notice, Eve named the baby. This same situation is recorded over and over again in the Bible. The mother gave her child a name that not only had meaning to her but to her life at that time.
So let’s go back to Zillah, who after having a baby girl, called her Naamah, which means “pleasantness,” a word the dictionary defines as “providing joy.”
In the midst of a chaotic and potentially disagreeable and contentious situation, Zillah chose “joy” and she even named her precious daughter after the choice she made. Since the Bible doesn’t tell us anything to the contrary, I choose to believe that Naamah lived her life bringing “pleasantness” and “joy” to all she met. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if God included her story to let us know that no matter how tragic and destructive our home situation, we can choose to be “daughters of joy” bringing pleasantness like rain to dry ground. I love this quote by Buffy Sainte-Marie: “You have to sniff out joy, keep your nose to the joy-trail.” “AMEN!” is what I say to that. For throughout history, God’s daughters have found that joy can be in very short-supply, especially when you think about some of the terrorizing things that have happened to women. Yet, even in the face of being a descendent of Cain and the daughter of Lamech, who chose to ignore God his Creator, we find “pleasantness” rises above the defilement of marriage to bring “joy” into a home. In the words of one of my heroines, the gifted Helen Keller: “Joy is the holy fire that keeps our purpose warm and our intelligence aglow.” I will add to this – “Shine On” – daughters of God. May joy be the candle of light we share today – no matter how dark our world.
“We have within ourselves
Enough to fill the present day with joy,
And overspread the future years with hope.”
William Wordsworth
AFFIRMATION
“Grant to us, O Lord, the royalty of inward happiness, and the serenity which comes from living close to thee. Daily renew in us the sense of joy, and let the eternal Spirit of the Father dwell in our souls and bodies, filling every corner of our hearts with light and grace; so that, bearing about with us the infection of good courage, we may be diffusers of life, and may meet all ills and cross accidents with gallant and high-hearted happiness, giving thee thanks always for all things.”
Robert Louis Stevenson
1850-1894
Your friend
Dorothy Valcarcel, Author
When A Woman Meets Jesus
Dorothy@TransformationGarden.com
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