Choosing Joy

Last week I felt like I was losing it. Losing what exactly I'm not quite sure...but it was something. Getting through five minutes in a day couldn't be this hard. It shouldn't be. But it was. It often is. It's a struggle. This life is a struggle.

I yelled, cried and hollered and asked Him why He doesn't just fix me, why He lets me struggle through my day, struggle with this anger, why I can't be who I think I am, who I think I should be.

 I thought He was being silent...then the peace came. His peace.

His JOY.

I'm grateful for how God speaks to me. I used to think I didn't know how to hear from Him. I used to think He chose to be silent. But I'm realizing I was wrong.

Maybe it's just that it takes a lifetime to get to know what He sounds like...and I'm just getting a little more familiar with His voice.

I keep falling and failing and wallowing in the guilt. But I'm ready for the cycle to be broken.

I want to be a woman who's relationship with Jesus is evident in her life. I want to pass on that legacy to my children: the legacy of the power the changing Grace of their Savior, a legacy of unwavering joy.

Because it's not enough just to not fall apart--I need to have loftier goals.I will not grieve I will choose the strength that comes from the Joy of the Lord.

And why Joy? "Because" this farmer's wife writes "Joy is dangerous — it’s igniting and contagious and otherworldly and it wins demon wars".
As I began this week with that power and that strength I'm intent on starting a new chapter.

This chapter will be the one where I hang on to His power because apart from God there is no joy. This will be the chapter that I will believe my Savior and I will behave as if I'm actually saved: saved from the pit (and all that brings) and saved for His purpose (and all He has in store). This is the chapter where my words will match what I want to be.

This is the chapter where I choose JOY. I hit the keys and type those words and I think here on what Ann wrote, words I've read long ago and again but never quite let sink all the way in until just now:

“Why deprive myself of joy’s oxygen? The swiftness and starkness of the answer startle.
Because you believe in the power of the pit.
Really?
Do I really smother my own joy because I believe that anger achieves more than love?
That Satan’s way is more powerful, more practical, more fulfilling in my daily life than Jesus’ way? Why else get angry?
Is it because I think complaining, exasperation, resentment will pound me up into the full life I really want?
When I choose — and it is a choice — to crush joy with bitterness, am I not purposefully choosing to take the way of the Prince of Darkness?
Choosing the angry way of Lucifer because I think it is more effective — more expedient— than giving thanks? than living joy?”
~ One Thousand Gifts

Oh how I must remember that I am daily, repeatedly making a choice on WHO I follow. Phrased like that---HOW could I ever choose anything else? 

This week will be different, this month, this year...

 I lift up my broken emotions and my crazy reactions and I pray and trust that He mends and restores and gives me grace. Whatever this week may bring ,whatever each day may bring, whatever each moment may bring, I pray that I could react with gentleness that my gentleness may be evident to all.

 He continues to work and mends my broken.

I am just so grateful, so bent down humbly grateful, that He doesn't leave me in my mess.