With the help of google, I was trying to reconstruct a long-lost memory of a choir teacher I had in elementary school. Apparently, a more modern artist made a song with similar lyrics to the ones I was unsuccessfully searching for.
Here's gem a found on the way:
When it comes to life, almost everyone is like almost everyone: bland, monotonous, drab.
In a world of lackluster people, be the girl in the pink.
All of those kids are singing "nothing is going to steal my joy," but it seems to me only one of those kids believes it.
As disciples of Christ, we have a rich inheritance that is designed to stretch us in every direction, as Jesus was stretched figuratively in life and literally in death.
The call to us it follow him, replicating in the details of our own lives the same qualities of his. This pulls us in many directions at once until and unless we come to discover and experience the unity in Christ, who draws together all things in himself.
Certainly included in the pulling directions of discipleship are the tensioned poles of suffering on the one hand and joy in the other. Like all qualities of Christ, these continue expanding in opposite directions until they find perfect unity in a fullness of him.
Our call as disciples is not just to obediently shoulder the crosses of the world, but also to fulfill the purpose of the crucible: through sacrificing all things again and again, at increasing depths of awareness, we are meant to achieve peace that surpasses all understanding, and joy that overflows all limits.
Our call is for two reasons: that which it renders to us in who we become and therefore what we qualify for, and that which it renders to others, for whom we become demonstrative waypoints in the path to becoming more like God. Of our demonstration, some will be drawn to God through the unmerited suffering we endure, as did the soldier at the feet of Christ, or the thief hanging beside him on the cross. But some will only be drawn to God by the obviousness and abundance of our overflowing joy.
Joy is not something meant to be hidden, nor will it long tolerate the attempt. It will pierce through and melt all things that attempt to prevent its full expression.
Joy is not something that can be obtained at rest. It is a light that is not only meant to be placed on a hill, but is also only encountered commensurate with one's elevation in the mountain of the Lord:
So Abraham called that place The Lord Will Provide. And to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.” (Gen. 22:14, NIV)
The word "rejoice" is one of many in the scriptures whose meaning we take for granted, but whose richness we barely begin to approach. "Rejoice" doesn't merely mean to be happy or to express happiness. It means to overflow with joy. To be filled to overflowing.
Each and every day we ought to arise with such a desire for and from God that we can truthfully say:
This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it. (Ps. 118:24)
If we don't yet have this joy, we ought to leverage our whole souls to find it, because it is plainly promised to the disciples of Christ.