Joy
Have you ever thought about joy and its role in your life? What it really means to live a joy-filled life? I have…and here where I netted out….I’m in…I choose JOY.
It sounds easy enough, but it’s not always that straightforward to pull off. Choosing joy takes focus, a lot of gratitude, and loads of forgiveness. It is easy to choose joy when the days are sparkly and everything seems to be running along well. It’s easy when everyone gets along, the scary test results come back negative, and the flowers are blooming. But you know, it’s hard, very hard, to choose joy when the phone won’t ring while you are waiting for those results. It is hard to choose joy when the phone finally does ring and the news is bad. Those are the moments when joy is out of reach, out of sight. For me, turning those moments around has been the saving grace in my life. There have been so many times when I have wanted to stop and wallow. And don’t get me wrong…. I believe that letting yourself feel the hard stuff is very important…it is just that the wallowing isn’t. There is a big difference between seeing your pain, understanding your grief, and letting it strangle joy from your life.
Joy isn’t happiness. It is so much deeper, and it gives so much more. Joy sits in our souls and lets us know that it is going to be ok. Even with the bad news. Even when the darkness is seeping in. Joy stays in our soul and says…you are always loved. SO loved. Joy reminds us that the blessings in our lives are always there, even when the bad might seem to overtake them. Joy reminds us to pick up our heads and move back into the light. Joy lets us feel real comfort.
The catch though is that joy is a choice. You have to want to let it in; you have to want to not wallow or be the victim. I don’t mean that you have to fake your way through something. Jump up and down and pretend it’s not happening. Oh – I know - it’s happening. But, it means that you can see bigger than that moment. Joy fills you with hope. It lets you know that beyond the broken world we are in, there is an infinite love that will never leave us.
The burdens don’t go away, but they lessen when you choose to change the lens of your life. In my heart, I know there is a God that loves us, a God that gave us all the capacity to feel God’s life force of joy if we let it in. It is amazing how it takes over if we give it the chance. It doesn’t stop the journeys we were on, even the hard parts, but it reminds us daily that none of this is it. We can find joy always…. we just have to make that choice. Then imagine how much lighter all of our loads would be if we all just took a moment to reflect joy to each other. That’s where the grace and power exist in joy…it’s contagious when it’s real!