To Live a Life of Joy

To live a life of joy, one must choose joy.

This morning was nothing less than rotten. 

My three-year-old couldn't handle life past 8 o'clock and spent the next five hours whining and crying and complaining and being a real bully to her sister (such as putting pots on her little baby head and then banging on it with metal spoons...). There were a lot of time outs, threats, and things taken away, which obviously didn't seem to help. 

I woke up this morning generally happy, although very cold (it would happen that the day after we install our A/C unit and put all the warm winter clothes away, the temps plummet back into the 40's....), picked spinach and kale from my garden, and made a delicious breakfast smoothie. After drinking my smoothie, my oldest began falling apart (it was now 8 o'clock, you see) and I received some extremely disappointing news that suddenly made me very very VERY angry. 

I'm pretty sure if you looked close enough, you would have seen smoke coming out of my ears. I was really angry.

And then in my anger, I realized that this holiday weekend, my husband is working, my grown siblings are with their significant others, and my parents and younger siblings (as well as my friends) are all out of town vacationing. Except me. I'm still here. All alone with my kids.

[cue the sad violin music]

So I put the baby down for her nap, took my whining and crying daughter into the bathroom with me, and proceeded to take a hot shower to calm down my nerves. It kind of worked, until I got out of the shower and saw that every square inch of the bathroom walls and ceiling were all dripping a thick brown goo... Apparently three washings of TSP is not enough to make the tar from smoke residue kick the bucket. More work for me later.

I got ready for the day and resolved to do everything in my power to forget why I'm angry and just try to cheer my oldest daughter up, but to no avail. She won't be cheered up. She WANTS to be mad! She refuses everything fun and instead wallows in her own self pity and despair. 

I do too. 

Because it's easy and I'm mad and let's all just act three years old, why don't we. 

And then my husband, who happens to be working from home today, comes out of his office and tells me that he wants us to stop buying foods with preservatives in them and that we should grind our own wheat (that is purchased, of course), bake our own bread, make our own pasta, eat from the garden, raise our own dairy goats and eat less meat. 

Who is this man and what did he do with my gummy worm loving husband?!?

Normally these words would be music to my ears. After all, I have been waiting for him to get excited about healthy eating and eating Real Food for a long, long, long time! But instead, deep down in my muddy pit of misery, all I hear is MORE WORK WORK WORK for me to do! And NO MORE BROWNIES FROM THE BOX!!! (Boxed brownies are the ONE AND ONLY thing I swear I can't give up. Brownies from the box are like heaven on a plate. They just can't be matched! Give them up?! Hells no!)

So I feebly say a shaky, "ok, I'll see what I can do," and am secretly relieved that we still have to finish what's already been purchased in our pantry before totally switching over. Although a second peek tells me that the brownies have already been baked. sigh. I will have to settle for the angel food cake. 

Then my baby, who is awake by now, starts choking on a big folded up sticker that she stuffed into her mouth. And after she is unclogged, my oldest starts whacking her on the head with a wooden spoon until she screams and I run in to rescue her.

And I dig down deeper still...

The funny thing is, that all the while I keep hearing in my head, over and over, "choose joy, choose joy, choose joy." Like a mantra that I am trying to keep out, but continues to float lightly back in. 

Choose joy. Choose joy. Choose joy. 

To appease the relentless voice of the (slightly annoying) God, I angrily prayed, "LORD! Just give me joy!"

But instead of a warm joyful feeling that might have hypothetically flooded my being, erasing all the rottenness of the morning and replacing all my horrid feelings with flowers and butterflies and general well being, instead He answered with the Truth. 

The very same Truth He had been prompting my heart with all morning. 

The truth is that He has already given it to me. 
Joy is one of the fruits that manifests itself when we choose to live and walk in the Spirit. 

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control." Galatians 5:22-23

But that's just it. We have to choose.

Paul continues on in Galatians to say, "Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit."

Just as I made the conscious choice to throw myself a miserable little pity party, I could have very easily made the opposite choice to walk in joy and thanksgiving instead.

May we not waste our days wallowing when Christ has created us for so much more! Our children will learn to live lives of joy by our own examples. 

So instead of wallowing in self pity, let's dance in joy instead.