Choices

The last couple of days have been some of those days where my faith in mankind was tested, and I do mean man-kind. I know I have to keep my perspective since it relates to middle schoolers and they are certainly not fully developed into caring human beings yet. But, I was hoping mine was further up the learning curve than it turns out he is. He broke a little girl's heart and man, I am grieving for her. I was beginning to wonder if I had some residual repressed memory from middle school that I hadn't dealt with, but no, it turns out I just really love this young woman. She has become precious to me. See, here I go again. I do not cry easily but I could go there for her.

I found myself with some extra alone time in the evening Monday when I'm usually busy with my boys and I decided I needed to do some reconnecting. I needed to step into the Light. I've been telling myself lately that joy is a choice. Not that I have needed to make that choice because I tell you, I have been incredibly full of joy over the last, I don't know, 6 months or so. (Interesting. I just connected that with a prayer a friend prayed over me in which they said they just kept getting the word "JOY" over and over. That's the kind of prayer I love to hear.) I have run into so many people lately who seem to have no joy and I want to take them in my arms and pray Joy over them, too. I want to tell them to choose to be joyful, to ask to be joyful. Okay, I'm rambling here. What I'm getting at is that as I was sitting there on the back patio mulling over this situation with Max when I realized it had stolen my joy, that my heart was heavy. I decided to test this theory of choosing joy and literally said, “ok, God, here I am mucked under and right now I choose joy.”

It was at that point I looked over at the trees and saw this:


Intrigued, I got up to get a closer look at which point I got the camera and took these:



My joy was given a jolt. I still have an insensitive self-centered man-boy living in my house, but I also have joy in my heart. And I know my new friend’s joy will be restored too. I’m praying that for her, that her joy would be found deep within herself, that she would be filled with the joy of her salvation and not rely on a guy for it. I know God will bless her. He’s just like that. That’s why I love him so very much. He really does care about where you are in your life and how you feel. He’s waiting for you to acknowledge him and ask. He wants so much more for us than we can imagine. So imagine big.