The Joy in My Heart

I've got that joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart!  Where?  DOWN IN MY HEART!...  that's right!

I have spent many moons depending on outside forces to feel joy and repeatedly, I have turned up feeling disappointed.  My husband looked at me crooked.  My children pushed my last button that sent me through the roof.  Someone else got the big promotion that I had worked so hard to earn.  It never failed.  When turning to others or circumstance for the experience of joy it was always a fleeting moment that left me feeling irritated, guilty or upset.

So where, then, is joy hiding?

This past year has been one of great discovery for me, an Eat Pray Love sort of journey without the hassle of traveling for a year by myself to Italy, India, and Indonesia (as if that wouldn't be ideal).  After retreating into my own personal hell while alienating my faith, husband, family, and friends I had nowhere left to turn but the mirror.  I expected to see a crazy, possessed woman that I hardly recognized.  And I did. 

So what was left to do, but pray?  And I did.  I prayed often and fervently to be guided out of misery and delivered into a joyous life (the one that was there, patiently waiting for me to wake up!).  Through my newly formed, desperate, and doubtful relationship with God I was, in fact, lead out of my darkness.  In search of balance and understanding I began writing about my life as I experience it through God's word.  It isn't always easy and I am not always shown things I want to admit about myself, but it has brought me back.  It has given me a clear map in which I want to model my life, the one I have been given.  And THAT, brings me joy.

This post is part of SOYJOY‘s What brings you joy contest. Learn more here.”