That joy is kind of like a rainbow. The stuff that goes into making a rainbow is there all the time, sun and water. For us to see a rainbow, the sun just has to shine at the right angle at the right time to see it, but the ingredients are always there.

Sharing joy isn’t always easy to do. In fact, sometimes it’s very hard, especially when someone gets something that you really, really want. But that is one of the jobs God gives us, that is part of loving people. God puts us here and puts us in families, in neighborhoods, in schools to love and care for each other. Part of that loving and caring is sharing joy (when it’s easy and when it’s hard) and sorrow or grief.    

Children will, I think innately understand the idea of Kintsugi – it is very concrete, and they are concrete thinkers. As you speak with your children about practicing joy in sadness, you might consider watching: I Walk with Vanessa (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B32ZfD2JDBI).

It’s a lovely story about kindness and about sadness. I think your children will be able to see how Vanessa felt a lot like the bowl pictures above and understand the idea of joy in sadness. They may not be able to use words to explain it, so you might ask them to draw a picture and tell you about it or see if they have words to describe how the story makes them feel.  I suspect you will be amazed at your child’s depth of emotional understanding. Another book that you might consider, though it is much longer, is The Velveteen Rabbit.                                              

We really don’t need to do much of anything to encourage a children’s reverence for and joy in nature other than to let their joy rub off on us, and to remind them that God created everything, including them, and created everything for good.  You won’t really be telling them, they know it on some deep instinctive level, and that gives them joy too.

Practicing Joy isn’t hard, but you do have to think about it, you have to practice.