You have read so much. You have heard so much. You have studied. You have sought. You seek still. You know so much, and you know that you are supposed to be happy, and yet happiness eludes you. Rather, happiness weaves in and out of your life.

There are times when you have thought that happiness was yours, and then, unbeknownst to you, happiness slipped away. You were not looking. Your happiness becomes like a baby princess who has been stolen away and replaced with a distorted changeling. Without your knowing how or when, it is like a piece of coal was left in the place of the joyful baby princess you once held.

Discouragement and despair enter. Your heart is turned into that piece of coal. It is unimaginable how the princess of happiness could be so easily replaced and the queen of love shot out the window of your heart and blown into smithereens.

You know better, and yet, the moment seems to come when despair is your partner, buys you out, takes over and becomes the rule of the day. Something has come upon you. One moment you were King of the Castle, and now you're not. You wander the terrain of your life, and you wonder where is happiness? Where did it go? When will it come back? Will it come back?

Suddenly you have become bitter and inconsolable. Emptiness assaults your heart, where your heart once was. What do you do now?

Here's what to do, beloveds. Consider this desolation like a dance that you sit out. Despair has come up to you and asked you to dance.

You say, "No, thank you. I'll sit out this dance. I will notice you on the dance floor, but I am not going to have you put your arms around me, and I am not going to dance with you. I am not going to join you. I don't have to join you. I will not have you lead me. Soon this dance will be over, and I will return to my heart, or my heart will return to me. In any case, you will leave. You have tried to insert yourself into my life. You have accosted me. You have stuck your foot in the door, and, yet, you do not have the key to my heart and my life. You might as well leave now. Away with you. You are but a hoodlum who makes out that he is strong. Next to love, you are a weakling. No matter how you may have buttressed my heart, my heart is fortressed with God. Next to God's love, you are but a broken matchstick. You are not going to start a conflagration in my heart. No, you're not."

And, so, you do not dance with this flimsy despair. You do not fall into his trap. Where did you ever get the idea that despair could overtake you? He can try. He can tap dance around you. You may be his prey, but you are definitely not his prize. He may try all his tricks, but you are immune to his charms, beloved. Despair has no place in your life. This dance is reserved for happiness.

And so you ask Me, "Where is my happiness then? Where did it go? When will it come back?"

Beloveds, your happiness is right here where it always has been. Despair cast a shadow over it, and soon the sun will come out, and the shadow will move as shadows must. Happiness never left. It was occluded from view by a shady character, no more than a scoundrel. No matter how renowned this scoundrel, scoundrels go away, and you will know happiness again.