Joy is not the same as happiness.

Happiness is fleeting, flitting, failing; it disappears concurrently with its appearance.

Circumstances ruin happiness as does a thief in the night –

Each momentary smile, like each material possession,

Gone.

Gone.

Gone.

Happiness does not match joy.

Joy is beautiful, beauteous, bountiful; with chasm-like depth and velvet richness.

Time elapses, yet joy prevails –

Through every birth,

every death,

every celebration,

every war.

But does joy end?

Do its oases of gladness collide with the deserts of despair and grief?

Perhaps, but only for a season.

It never fails to return, to lay its fingers of relief on the wounds of the disheartened.

Joy remains – through all adversity –

Till we give up the ghost.