Choosing Joy

     Today is the last day of November and tomorrow we enter into the last month of this year. So much has happened but at the same time, it feels like very little in my life is different. I'm still at home. I'm not published yet. Not married yet either. I think the most exciting things that's happened is that I have my own car. Beyond that, things have been quiet. Next year promises to be full of change so I'm trying to enjoy the quiet I have for as long as I can. Things have been the same for a long time now, it's weird to think that it all will change. I hope I'm ready for it, the future seems so big, but I know that God has good in store for me. 

    I don't want to talk about Christmas yet because I have all of next month to do so. I'm a little excited about it but people get so caught up in it. There's so much materialism and commercialism and very little focus on what the holiday is supposed to be about. As a family, we've tried to be careful about how we celebrate and the traditions we indulge but we've learned that it's a season worth celebrating and participating in. 

    Joy is so important to our lives. I think that reading this, you'd agree with me, because, duh, why wouldn't you want to be happy? We don't always live like that though. It's so much easier to focus on things that stress you out and get caught up in the craziness. Life happens so quickly and sometimes it's hard to just keep up with it, let alone be joyful. I've talked so much this year about slowing down and living intentionally. This is part of it. Things stress me out very easily and I never know how to deal with them. A lot of it is out of control or it isn't up to me to fix or change it. Some of it is just me being in my head. It is exhausting, let me tell you. The little things add up so quickly and it gets overwhelming. And yes, there is validity to a lot of what stresses me out but when I know it's beyond anything I can do, I have to figure out how to let it go. I have to choose joy over anxiety and it's hard. It's not as easy to achieve and that in and of itself is frustrating to me. 

    Calling it a choice doesn't make it any easier. Joy seems like it would be an emotion more than an attitude. Human beings are emotional creatures and hormones can feel stronger than your will. In James 1, James tells us to consider it joy when we encounter trials. I don't know about you but I would much rather run and hide from trials. I'm feeling scared and alone rather than cheerful. I think we will always face those emotions in less than ideal circumstances but we don't have to give them full control. We can choose to be optimistic and hopeful. We can shift our focus. I don't know that joy will ever be my first response to the hard things in my life but it's a decision I want to be able to make for myself. I may not always know how to be hopeful when I'm stressed out but I know it's better to try rather than wallow. 

    I am not at all an outgoing person. I don't even consider myself particularly empathetic. I have emotions, don't get me wrong, but I've always felt that I don't feel them as strongly as I see it in the people around me. Even when I was little, my sister would be falling off the couch laughing and I would just sit, watching. We were both enjoying the same thing but I have always expressed myself quietly. To use a kind word to describe myself, I've always felt steady. Never too happy or too sad: steady. Most of the time, what I feel is in moderation and for the most part, I'm okay with it. Joy seems like such a strong emotion to me and I often feel like something like that would be impossible. It's not my personality, contentment is perfectly adequate, so why bother? However, as I've been saying for so much of this year, I want to live my life to the fullest. I also want to give God glory in it and with it and He deserves more than just steadiness from me. I want to be joyful in Him and for Him. I want to be full, to be passionate about my relationship with Him. I want to stop taking important and miraculous things for granted. This life we have, as rough and stressful and overwhelming as it can be, is a miracle and I don't want a day to go by that I don't thank God for it. That includes prayer but I want to be evident in how I live too. I want to choose joy every day. I guarantee you I probably won't, I'm too human for that, but I do hope to get better at it. 

Yours Truly

Rey