Wrinkles. Whole lines of products are designed to obliterate them but as a child this fact was completely lost on me….

An integral part of growing up with a large extended family was the occasional reunions. Aunts, uncles and cousins crowded into my grandparents’ modest home. Amidst the childish fun, one face stood out, my youngest aunt. She seemed to always be smiling and her wrinkles intrigued me. She wasn’t old by any means and her skin is beautiful. But she had wrinkles around her eyes from smiling so much.

When we got back home, I determined to get “smile wrinkles”—as soon as possible. So that night I resolved to start smiling myself to sleep, quite pleased with my brilliant idea.

I awoke in the morning in terrible pain. My mouth ached and I could barely talk, let alone smile.

Could there be a better way?

Of course, I can’t help but laugh as I reminisce. What exactly is the point of looking happy, if all the smiles are bestowed on a ceiling- in the dark?

As a wife and mother to young children, there are so many little trials that can quickly sap the smiles: unconquerable piles of laundry, sleepless nights, financial worries or a seemingly never-ending cold.

Yet in 1 Thessalonians we are commanded to “Rejoice evermore”. In many other instances the words translated “joy” or “rejoice” do mean boisterous happiness, but here it means “to be cheerful” or “calmly happy”. Though there are days when the ecstatic joy seems to bounce through the windows and soar into the sky, those days are balanced by ones of real sorrow.

But through it all, this calm joy of knowing and resting in the goodness of God should sustain us. It is what should put a smile on our face even at 2:00 in the morning.

Then, soon enough, the “smile wrinkles” will be well deserved.