Happiness Is

You know when you get a song stuck in your head, and how it can be quite annoying even if it is a song you normally like?

 Imagine this for a moment: You get a song stuck in your head that you already find irritating (the song, not your head) and it will. Not. Go. Away.

And imagine this: As a joke, someone tells a group of sweet little girls to sing you that song, so for a while they follow you around and drive you up the wall.

But it doesn’t stop there.

Imagine walking down the hallway in a school and, like a motion sensor as you pass, each classroom begins a chorus of said song the moment they see you through the window, so you get four renditions in a row while all you wanted to do was deliver a paper to a teacher.

Then imagine going home thinking only, “I have got to get this song out of my head.” You put on some new music given to you by someone you thought was a friend, but a minute into the song it changes to something entirely different… yes of course they would splice the irritating song into the middle of one you had never before heard. There is no getting away from it.

Imagine children waking you up by singing it on your veranda in the morning… and in the afternoon… and in the evening before bed.

You just imagined my last three weeks. The abridged, mild version, that is.

Ironically, the song I find so aggravating is entitled “Happiness Is.” Fitting, right? The message is decent:

Happiness is to know the Savior

Living a life within His favor

Having a change in my behavior

Happiness is the Lord

Real joy is mine

No matter if teardrops start

I’ve found the secret

It’s Jesus in my heart

That is the first verse and chorus. There are two more verses, but I will not subject you to more corny lyrics.

Okay, truthfully, I am not willing to type them.

This song does not make me happy. It makes me want to rip out my hair and use it to plug my ears so I no longer have to hear the all-too-cheerful tune. That may sound extreme, but if it had been running through your head for three weeks you would have had your fair share of meltdowns by this point too. I guarantee it. Even the word “happy” makes me exasperated. Oh, irony.

That song does not make me happy. There is no question or doubt in anyone’s mind about that. However, in having such a song go through my head in recent weeks, it is enough to make one consider what does make me happy.

I tell you? (A question with which most children here begin their stories, regardless of whether you answer positively or negatively. So I am going to tell you whether you want me to or not.)

Happiness is sitting on my veranda in the early hours of morning, talking with God and watching the sun rise over the forested hill across the valley. I have been here nearly a year and I still rush outside at the first glimpse of orange through my window.

Happiness is going “swimming” with the nursery school children during the holiday program. For one, when you tell them they get to go swimming, they jump up and down and scream and tell all their friends. Who doesn’t want to make four-year-olds do that? And then there is the actual swimming, which in reality is a square-shaped slip-n-slide where we pour shampoo and spray water and everyone slides around on their stomachs for an hour. The squeals of delight would cheer up Scrooge, I swear.

Happiness is watching the children pass my house on their way to school every morning. Being greeted by a dozen enthusiastic “Auntie Katie!”s is not such a bad way to start a day. I love that they still do it.

 Happiness is my dear friend Ruth becoming a boarding student here at Noah’s Ark. We are no longer limited to minutes after school and hours on Saturday afternoons—we live in the same place!

 Happiness is every Sunday when the church leader announces time for testimonies and thirty children literally run from their seats to the stage to tell the rest of us what God has been doing in their lives in the past week and for what they are thankful. Granted, half of them praise God that tomorrow is school or tomorrow is Monday, but hey, how many of us adults ever consider thanking God for Mondays?

Happiness is sorting books on a Saturday afternoon while Angel and Benja cuddle up on my bed—Angel to read, Benja to sleep. I don’t think my house has ever been so calm with children inside.

 Happiness is walking outside at night, glancing up, and then stopping dead in my tracks because the stars have rendered me speechless once again. Like the sunrise, this is a nearly daily occurrence, but they never cease to amaze me. If God can imagine and create something so awe-inspiring, how much more awesome must He be!

Happiness is watching Mariska worship in church. That nine-year-old girl stands in the space between the congregation and the stage, eyes fixed on the worship team and mimicking their every word and action. She sings and dances in the almost-graceful, innocent way only a child can do.

 Happiness is a library set up and ready to go for the beginning of Term Two of school. (Don’t get too excited—this is still the primary library. The secondary one for which I have been collecting books is still some time in the making.)

Happiness is knowing that in less than a month my mom and aunt are going to be here in Uganda with me. Less than a month. Here in Uganda. My family. The only appropriate word seems to be “booyah!” but at the same time it does not seem fitting at all. Might I remind everyone that I am an English major and am clearly putting that education to good use.

Happiness is spending a Saturday afternoon building a blanket/sheet/sleeping bag/curtain fort in my living room and squeezing fifteen children underneath to read books.

Happiness is the weekly missionary game night on Sundays. Phase Ten, Catan, Telephone Pictionary, Spot It, it doesn’t matter—the laughter, I tell you.

Happiness is knowing that at this point in my life, I am where God wants me to be. No, I do not do things perfectly and I miss the mark much of the time, but I now feel closer to the center of His will than I have in… perhaps ever. I miss home and I long for heaven, but I really, truly want to be here and am happy God has given me this opportunity.

For the record, I did not mean to type the word “happy” there. Somehow in the process of writing this blog I had forgotten the song, and now with that one word it is back in full force. I won’t type the words that are going through my head (they are not the words to the song). 

Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise. (James 5:13)

Just not that song.