Our everyday lives are full of ups and downs and to be honest they are just BUSY! In all of the crazy and chaos, in a bad day or in a tough season, is it possible for us to remain full of joy and positive? Absolutely, it is possible when we realize where our joy comes from and that it is not dependent on how well our day is going or what we going through. Joy is from the Lord and it’s a tool we use to get through our not-so-great days.
I am not saying that we have to be happy all the time and if we are struggling with something we don’t share it. We need to share our struggles but we don’t have to pick sides, joy only or sadness only. It is possible to experience both simultaneously. Be real, be vulnerable and honest with yourself and those around you with your feelings. What I am saying is that it is possible to not be down and negative all the time, that we can experience joy even in the midst of all the negativity or tough seasons we may find ourselves in.
How do we come to this place where we can experience joy. I believe we need to do two things: be grateful and be hopeful.
The other day I was driving in my car which is usually my thinking space and my mind seemed to be else where. I cannot tell you what I was thinking, I am sure I was zoning out, expressionless and emotionless, until I looked up at the sky and realized how beautiful it was. The scenery around me as I passed the farm lands on either side were breathtaking and I could not help but thank God for His beauty. Thus, reminding me that I need to thank God for all the little things in my life. As soon as I felt grateful my heart began to feel joy and I could feel a smile coming through.
I encourage you in your day and in your season that you are going through, to find something to be grateful for and to find something that you can hold onto and hope for. When we hope, there is a window for us to be able to move forward, to keep going and to keep living. A little hope will over time grow until hope speaks louder than the circumstance and what we can see in the natural. Hope is the ability to see things from a different perspective, with the eyes of Jesus and not our own.
Where does our hope come from, it comes from the Lord. Our plans do not always go according to the way we want them and often resulting in us questioning life and sometimes even God. No matter how difficult the road gets for you, and it will, we can have hope because God’s ways are higher than our ways, His ways are to prosper us and to give us hope and a future.
When my husband and I were trying to fall pregnant with our first child, we tried for a few months and nothing was happening, so I went to the gynecologist for a check up to see if everything was fine. The gynecologist told me that I couldn’t have children naturally because of polycystic ovaries, to which I needed a booster injection and a three month waiting period where I could not fall pregnant, before I could start any fertility treatment. That evening my husband and I decided we would not do the treatment but I would have the booster injection to help my immune system. So, I went for my injection the next day.
All was good, but a week later after my injection I was so sick….. I was pregnant. YAY!! But WAIT, the gynecologist said we weren’t allowed to fall pregnant and had to have a three month waiting period. I called the gynecologist, to which he was quite upset, and it turned out that I was 6 weeks pregnant at the time, which meant I was 5 weeks at the time of my appointment and nothing was picked up in the ultrasound and blood work.
We immediately got called into his office and we spent over an hour talking to him, him making phone calls to doctors in Cape Town for advice and at the end he said he strongly felt we needed to terminate. I remember, I took one look at him and blurted out my God is bigger than this, to which his response was go home, think about, I strongly suggest you terminate because she could have all sorts of defects.
Throughout the next nine months we did not know what the outcome was going to be and we had two choices: be anxious and worry about the outcome or hold onto the hope that God is good and that our little one will be fine. We chose to have hope and to keep trusting in God throughout the next nine months and we delivered a beautiful healthy baby girl. God is good!
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV)
Throughout the nine months of waiting to see if the gynecologist was correct or that my God was bigger than all this was not always easy. We had a lot of people who knew our story asking if we were scared and worried about the outcome, and I know that they meant well but those questions planted seeds of doubt. We constantly had to remind ourselves to hold onto the little hope we had, because we really had no concrete evidence that she was going to be perfect.
The Devil comes to steal our joy and it’s time that we take it back. It’s time to find joy and hope in our lives, and to operate from that place as we live out our daily lives. Joy and Hope are yours for the taking. It’s been freely given to you, a beautifully wrapped gift. Grab it, unwrap it and choose to use it every day!
Today, I pray that despite what we see and experience, we will be able to be joyful. thankful for the small things and hopeful that God is always good. May we have the eyes to see from God’s perspective and not from a worldly one. May we know that God loves us and has a plan for our lives, even when we don’t see it. In Jesus name, Amen
