June Joy

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June Joy

by Monica Gambrell

My parents divorced when I was six years old, and my mother assumed the role of both mother and father. She was a strict disciplinarian, and there was no doubt that she held tight reigns on the entire family. As a wonderful balance to the discipline, she took any available opportunity to create moments of joy.

Saturdays were both dreaded and looked forward to by all of us. The standing rule was this: “as soon as the house is clean, we begin an adventure.” And when mom said clean, she meant spotless! We stripped the beds, did all the laundry, swept, mopped, and waxed the wood floors, cleaned the inside of the refrigerator, washed the windows, cleaned the floor furnace, cleaned the oven, dusted, and much more. I’ve never known anyone that was more of a pack-rat than she was, so dusting (always my job) was a real chore. The kitchen sink was lined with a towel before adding hot sudsy water, and every knick-knack in the house had to be washed and dried before returning it to a freshly dusted shelf or table. If you come to my house today, you’ll find very few things that are not utilitarian because I don’t want to have to dust them. Every hairbrush in the house was soaked in bleach water, then rinsed and laid out to dry. We knew not to dawdle, though, because it was a race to finish so our adventure could begin!

Every family develops their own way of looking at things, and my mother encouraged in every way the thought that “the journey is the point, not the destination.” In those sweet days of my childhood, weekend adventures were treasured beyond words. We always kept the ice-cream freezer (the hand-crank kind) in the trunk of the car, along with peanut butter, canned meat, rock salt, and other “necessities.” When cleaning ceased, we threw together a cooler of food and ice, and piled in the car for a trip to who knows where. When we asked my mother where we were going, she always replied with a resounding “who knows, but we’ll have fun getting there!” We would literally have no destination in mind, just a pleasant drive and a lot of fun.

I could recount numerous such trips, but one comes to mind more than most. It was late June and extremely hot. We were all piled into the station wagon, and I’m sure our conversation in the back was as heated as the black tar road on which we were traveling. My mother took the

watermelon that was rolling around the back floor of the car and made a game that was both tasty and entertaining. She cracked it open on the tailgate (no utensils handy), scooped it out by hand, and tossed hands full to each of us lined up on the side of the road while we held our hands behind our backs. Imagine driving by and seeing that! What a clever way to break up the tension and irritation of six people in a hot, crowded car!

How easy it is to choose joy. How rarely do we choose it. Lord, help us to have an attitude of joy. May we search for it as one searches for great riches. “These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full” (John 15:11).

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