Do you know that euphoric feeling you get when you have been sick or in pain for several days and, finally, a majority of the misery melts away and you actually feel pretty good? It may make you want to do cartwheels down the hallway, greet everyone with a smile and a big hug, dance around your living room, or run around naked in your front yard … whatever your pleasure is, I think we all know that feeling of finally feeling well after being miserable for several days.

I experienced that yesterday. For the first day in over a week, I was able to walk most of the day without a limp. No more feeling like Quasimodo dragging a leg behind me! It was freeing, it was joyful, it was euphoric! I was still in some pain but, oh, it was so much less pain than I had experienced for several days prior. A huge weight of pain, misery, and worry had been lifted from me. The black cloud was gone. Blue skies had broken through. I could truly put on a happy face. I tend to get a little giddy and silly when I am at home and finally feeling good again. It was either that or all of the left-over Halloween candy but I was probably driving Lisa nuts last night.

Of course, that was my physical side and, boy did it feel good. But on our emotional sides, how much stuff do we carry around day in and day out that weighs us down and creates a black cloud? How much baggage, how much garbage, how much head trash? Grudges against others, building walls between us and them, guilt over past mistakes, worries about the future, concerns over our abilities, pridefulness and egos … these are all often deeply embedded things. Things that are, in reality, much harder to shake off than a bum knee or a bad cold.

But yet Jesus, if we can turn things over to Him, if we can trust in Him, if we can follow His assurance, offers us the same joyfulness and euphoria that we feel when that bad cold or flu goes away or when that bum knee finally starts to feel better. It can be ours all the time.

Treat others the way you want to be treated, my grace is sufficient for you, go and sin no more, my strength is made perfect in your weakness, the one who humbles himself will be exalted, all things work together for good … these are all His assurances that we were made in His likeness, that we can live emotionally pain-free and joyful lives, that we can do cartwheels down the hallway, smile and hug everyone, dance in the living room, run naked in the front yard (well, maybe that one should be taken under advisement) … but freedom is ours when we accept what He so freely offers and when we consistently follow Him in all parts of our lives.