The Color Yellow

Bright sunflowers sprawled happily across the white walls of the parking garage — a mural, one of many I saw in Ithaca this weekend. My cousins and I slowed to smile at its beauty for a moment. I found myself admiring the way the sunflowers crept over the edges of the wall to carry their light into the shadows of the stairwell when one of my cousins turned and said, “To me, you are the color yellow.”

Three separate people have told me that recently.

Not sure about you, but when I think of yellow, I picture joy, vibrance, laughter, sunshine, and other things that tend to inspire delight in the hearts of humans. As you can imagine, I take being likened to the color yellow as a compliment because of this. Admittedly, I know I haven’t always been yellow. There are times in my life where people may have described me as red or gray or blue, but, likely out of kindness, they never did. 

In fact, I wasn’t a color at all until I was yellow.

If you know me even just a bit, you know I give Jesus all the credit for this joy that doesn’t always make sense, and the more I let Him lead, the brighter the yellow becomes because His joy is truth. It is pure and concentrated, glowing brightly beyond my circumstance and influence, and I can take no credit for it.

I will also say this - I think everyone can be yellow. Different shades and hues, perhaps, but yellow just the same, all growing towards complete saturation and brightness, bringing vibrance, joy, and sunshine into the lives of the people around us. 

We can carry that light into the shadows and meet people where they are with love and hope, even in their darkness. 

Even in our own.

It’s as much a choice as it is a gift, and it’s what Jesus does for us.

We see joy often in the Bible, for example, James opens his letter by reminding us that even in our stickiest, saddest trials, we can claim joy despite our circumstances - why? - because we are maturing in our faith and growing in the fullness of Jesus. He writes, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters whenever you face trials of many kinds because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance” (James 1:2-3).  In another example, when Ezra read the word of God over the remnant of Israel, they wept over how far they had strayed from God and his law over the years, but Ezra encouraged them to celebrate their restoration instead of grieving their loss and failure, reminding them that “the joy of the Lord [was their] strength” (Nehemiah 8:10).

The joy of the Lord is our strength, too, and trials add to our joy because they strengthen us. It seems counterintuitive if we approach this concept with logic, but the currency of Heaven isn’t concerned with human realism. Joy is a gift that often glimmers quietly on the shelf during our hardest moment, shining through gathering dust…unless we decide to take it off the shelf and hold it close. 

So today, my sweet friend, I say it’s time to grab that joy with both hands and hold it like you mean it.

Let it wash over your edges and into the shadows.

Smile its warm golden glow, know you are loved, and pass it on. 

I hear it’s catching.