Showing posts with label JOY. Show all posts
Showing posts with label JOY. Show all posts

Day 30: JOY (The Freedoms of Joy)


Each day during The PURSE-onality Challenge: "A Holiday-Ready Heart" in October, Untangling Christmas by Karen Ehman and LeAnn Rice, will be our give-away prize!  

Enter via the Rafflecopter at the end of the blog post or click here to enter!

...weeping may last through the night,
but joy comes with the morning.
Psalm 30:5 (NIV)
Trying Too Hard

In Christmases past, I've wasted so much time trying too hard to manufacture the "right conditions" to produce the "right responses":
  • decorating the house just right so that my guests will admire me.
  • buying the just right gifts so that their recipients will be grateful.
  • cooking all the right foods so that those who eat it will be happy.
  • planning the right family time so that we'll all feel connected.
But things always managed to go wrong.
  • The carrot noses disappeared from all my hand-crafted snow-people, ruining my decorating scheme. 
  • Certain people refused to even open their gifts or, if they did, insisted they didn't need what I'd so carefully selected.
  • Some item of food always sets of the smoke alarm and the meal was never ready on time.
  • At any given moment, someone was grouchy and someone was tired and someone was mad at someone and it could not possibly have been more obvious that we are four very different PURSE-onalities!
Joy is a Gift
Grieving, I'm finding, is a rebirth process that invites joy to flourish in the present.

When I'm not burdened by anxiety for the future or regrets from the past, I'm freed to live in the here and now.

I can receive each present moment as a gift.

I love the verb tense of the Christmas carol lyrics "Joy to the world the Lord is come."

It's in the present tense.  

The Lord is come!
Joy is a Choice

I used to try too hard so that other people would react the way I needed them to so that I could experience holiday joy.

But my experience of joy is not dependent on any other person.

I experience joy because Jesus is come. 

As I choose to focus on Jesus, I choose joy.
The Freedoms of Joy

When I choose Joy, I'm freed from trying too hard so that... Instead,
  • I can decorate my home because doing so is an outward expression of inner celebration ... whether or not the carrot noses are ever found. 
  • I can give gifts because of how much I've been given ... whether or not they're opened or appreciated "properly."
  • I can fix food because it's one way we celebrate the many ways God has provided ... regardless of whether the hot foods are hot or cold foods cold when served.
  • I can hang out with family because -- regardless of our moods -- we are recipients of and expressions of God's unfathomable love. 

No matter what the issues I've struggled with in holidays past, this year I am free to choose joy.

Instead of struggling so that..., I will celebrate because

The Lord is come!


Your Turn:
  • What does "joy" mean to you? How is it different from happiness? What causes you to experience joy? 
  • What types of "trying so hard so that..." has blocked your holiday joy in the past?  
  • Anything else on your heart!


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    Why I Follow (Even Stupid) Rules

    (August 20-31 I'll be blogging my way through I Blame Eve: Freedom from Perfectionism, Control Issues, & the Tendency to Listen to Talking Snakes by Susanna Foth Aughtmon and giving away a copy each week!  You can enter the drawing via the Rafflecopter at the end of each blog post or right here.)

    "We think we can be good if we try hard enough….The snake loves this thinking because it is delusional in two ways: 
    (1) we think we have the ability to tally up goody points to get Jesus to love us, and (2) we think we have the right to judge others who don’t follow the rules. We get two sins for the price of one: pride and judging. 

    And, of course, we are missing the point completely. God is not impressed when we follow the rules. The way we act needs to flow out of our love for him, not out of our desire to appear holy….He does not call us to a life of good behavior. He calls us to a life filled with him….."

    Susanna Foth Aughtmon, I Blame Eve: Freedom from Perfectionism, Control Issues, & the Tendency to Listen to Talking Snakes

    * * * * * * * * * * 

    From yesterday’s comments and e-mails, I learned (to my great relief!) that I'm not the only one who regularly wipes down public bathroom counters, drives 44 in the 45 zone, and counts what’s in my cart before going into the 15 items or less lane!

    But lest you worry that I’m throwing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater, let me be clear:  

    I am still a rule-follower. 

    I’ve watched the lives of plenty of rebels--teenage and middle age--up close and personal. 

    Not pretty. Absolutely no allure.


    Why I Choose to Follow Rules

    This summer, I listened to the audio book of Donald Miller’s A Million Miles in a Thousand Years and then bought the paperback and read much of it aloud to Daniel. 

    We were struck by a simple truth:  in a movie, the choices a character makes determines the plot. The plot then changes the character. 

    Ultimately, choices make a character.

    Miller suggests applying this principle to everyday life. If I make a different choice today, my life will be different today. If I make a different choice every day, my life trajectory will alter. As my life changes, I will become a different kind of person. 

    Ultimately, my choices create my character.

    Of course, this isn’t a new idea. But somehow the movie analogy made it seem so real, especially since Daniel and I were collaborating on a workshop called “Heroes, Villains, and the Universal Epic.” 

    We started wondering aloud, throughout each day, which of the choices available to us would be the “heroic” choice and which would be the “villainous” choice. Sure, these are just slightly different terms for “good” and “bad.” But for some reason, thinking within the paradigm of a grand story, the choices felt like they mattered more.

    Ultimately, this is why my rule-following choices matter: they change my story and create my character. 


    Same Rule, Actual Choice

    So, revisiting yesterday’s Starbucks-mochas-and-the-movie-theater incident:  

    My knee-jerk reaction to the sign disturbs me not because I think we should have blown off the rule and taken the drinks inside the theater. 

    My automatic fear reaction to the rule disturbs me because my behavior was a perfect example of what Aughtmon calls “Pharisee-like piety: prettied up on the outside and dead on the inside.” 

    It was all rule, zero relationship. I was not listening to the Holy Spirit, nor was I seeking to show a Christ-like example to my brother.

    A more thought-full, conscientious response might have been to read the sign and simply tell my brother, “I’ll meet you in there” as I stayed behind to finish my mocha. 

    I would still choose not to take my drink in. 

     The key is choice.


    “So That” vs. “Because”

    I know I keep circling back to these two ideas. They’re helping me clarify so much about what hasn’t worked in the past and choose that which is working better now.

    My fear with following rules “so that” is that I focus so much on the rules, and the outcome that I need, that I forget about relationships.

    And my hope with following rules “because” is that I will focus so much on my relationships with God and others that I will forget all about the rules.

    Not because I’ve stopped following them.

    But because I’ve stopped noticing that I’m following the rules in the joy of following Him.



    Your Turn:
    • In what areas are you a rule-follower? 
    • How have you followed rules stupid?
    • Anything else on your heart!


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    The Truth I Can't Handle

    (August 20-31 I'll be blogging my way through I Blame Eve: Freedom from Perfectionism, Control Issues, & the Tendency to Listen to Talking Snakes by Susanna Foth Aughtmon and giving away a copy each week!  You can enter the drawing via the Rafflecopter at the end of each blog post or right here.)

    "The chasm between the life I expected to be mine and my real life threw me like a pro wrestler performing a body slam. I was down for the count and at a loss as to what to do.

     [My counselor suggested that I was] dealing with some very unrealistic expectations.

     I was holding so tightly to my expectations, I couldn't embrace the joy found in the life I'd been given."

    Susanna Foth Aughtmon, I Blame Eve:Freedom from Perfectionism, Control Issues, & the Tendency to Listen to Talking Snakes

    * * * * * * * * * * 

    I read a blog post today that made me want to curl up and cry.

    It wasn’t the writer’s fault. She honestly shared her story. She told her truth. 

    I couldn’t handle the truth. 

    The truth about 
    • how unintentional my parenting has been compared to hers.
    • how messed up my marriage has been compared to hers. 
    • how much “nothing” my life has contained compared to hers.

    So much of the pain and regret in my life has been my fault, no two ways about it. I’m learning to take responsibility for my choices and their long-term consequences. I try hard not to think “if only” too often. 


    Truth I Can’t Handle

    But I still can’t handle the truth.

    Not when it’s always 
    • the best-possible-outcome truth.
    • the we’re-always-smiling-with-whitened-teeth truth.
    • the if-you-just-do-it-this-way truth.

    This kind of truth makes me feel that if I ever met this writer in real life, I’d have to paste on a plastic smile and talk about the weather, ‘cause we’d have so little in common.

    My truth is so disappointing compared to hers. 

    In fact, my quarter-of-a-century of marriage and parenting can be easily summed up in two words:

    I stayed.


    Truth I Can Handle

    I can handle truth about 2-year-old tantrums and post-partum depression and going crazy with color-coded organizational systems in an attempt to gain some form of control.

    I can handle truth about kids who ditch & fail classes and rushing to the ER only to learn that an “anxiety attack” feels a lot like a heart attack and making To Do lists that rarely result in “Ta Da!” lists.

    I can handle truth about doing the best I can at the time, knowing it’s not nearly good enough, and having the proof paraded for the neighbors to gossip about.


    The Real Truth

    But today, jumping head-first into the compare-and-cry game, I forgot the real truth.

    It’s is never about 
    • what I have (or have not) done…
    • what you have (or have not) done…
    • what any blog writer has (or has not) done.

    It’s only about what Jesus has done.

    Always has been, always will be.

    Embrace this truth and embrace the joy found in the life you've been given.

    “I am the way and the truth and the life.” 
    (John 14:6)
    Your Turn:

    • When do you find yourself playing the "compare-and-cry" game? 
    • How do you handle the regretful truths of your life?
    • Anything else on your heart!

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