RECAP: 2014 - MY YEAR OF JOY

Word for the Year.

It's kind of a fun tradition in Blog Land.

When I first came across the idea, I liked it.  Mostly because I love words. Words have meaning and importance.  Words can shape and mold.  And so, I liked the idea of having a word that would become the *theme* of my year.

But, I wanted God to pick it.

I didn't want to "hedge my bets" and pick a word that I wanted.

I wanted Him to speak.

And He did.

In 2011, my first full year of blogging, He gave me the word: Determined. And indeed, that year was one in which I set my mind to achieve some goals (with His help, of course), and a year in which I became determined to follow Him even more closely.

In 2012, He gave me the word: Overcome.  And indeed, that year was one in which I had to overcome many things.  It was the year I moved, after 29 years living in one place, to completely new and unfamiliar surroundings.  It was a year when I overcame (with His help, of course), feelings of loneliness, and isolation, and homesickness.  A year in which I overcame obstacles that kept me from following Him even more closely.

In 2013, He gave me the word: Direction.  And indeed, that year was one in which I learned that God had a definite direction for me.  At first, I was desperate for a "direction" to go.  I wanted a ministry, an impact, a greater footprint in the world.  But, what God taught me (with His help, of course) was this – His direction was not about a path, but a Person.  It was a year that I learned the direction He had for me was, "Follow Me closer."


In 2014, I was floored by my new word.

It arrived unexpected, and if I might be so honest, unwelcome.

JOY.

I experienced great angst over the word joy, (I know – supreme irony).

Someone left me a comment on that very first post.  It hit me hard.

Her words:

"Sharon, I should probably not tell you that "joy" was my word for 2012.  I actually had a theme: 'Ain't nobody gonna steal my joy.'  And then I went on to have the toughest year of my life. 

He definitely led me back to that Scripture in James that says, 'Count it all joy when you face various trials...'"


Yes, her words resonated strongly with me.

For two things immediately came to my mind when I heard the word JOY.

The first was this:

"Really, Lord?  Me??  Joy?  You do know who I am, right?"

You see, I am not known by my happy-go-lucky, constantly upbeat, optimistically rose-colored look at the world.  Ask my family, they most often know me as a doomsday what-iffer, a woe-is-me grumbler, a glass-half-empty-when-I-can-even-see-a-glass pessimist.

A Nervous Nellie, and a Nora Naysayer.

And so, this word did not feel good.  It felt just like my jeans do lately.  Too tight, uncomfortable, pinching in all the wrong places.  And, quite frankly, just like my jeans lately, I had no interest in putting on the garb of Joy.

Which leads me to my second thought.

I figured that God has a way of teaching you things in unusual ways.  If you want more faith, He'll probably bring you more trials.  If you want more patience, He'll probably litter your path with frustrating circumstances and aggravating people.

And so I figured that if God was going to teach me about Joy, He was probably going to do it through pain.

Little did I know that the very same day my *announcement post* published, Monday, January 6th, my journey of Joy was indeed going to begin with pain.

That is the day that my father fell, badly, and ended up in the hospital.

And just ten days later, he died.

The words of that very wise commenter echoed inside of me.

Indeed, this was going to be a very difficult and painful year.

I remember looking at the heavens and asking God, "Why did You give me this word?  Why are You testing me so soon?"

Truthfully?  Sometimes I just want to stay off the enemy's radar.  I don't want to learn the tough lessons.

And though I might have roused myself to want to learn about Joy, I did NOT want to learn it in this way.

But God…He has other plans, other ways.

And in them we must rest.


So, here I am, almost a full year later.  And I would like to share some of my thoughts on the word JOY.

I hope I have learned His lessons well.


1) Joy is not happiness.

This might seem like a "duh" thought.  I have always known this concept to be a fact, at least intellectually.  But, learning this truth internally, in the very depths of my heart, had to be learned when I felt sad, when I was singularly unhappy, when I was grieving.  Joy had to be something deeper, or it would die, a victim of outside circumstances just like happiness perishes at the whim of turmoil and strife.  I had to find out that there was something more powerful than the fleeting experience of happiness.

Lo and behold, JOY was there.


2) Joy is not a feeling at all.

This was a big revelation.  I knew that joy was not happiness, but I still thought it was something that would emerge in the realm of my emotions. What I ended up finding out is that it is instead a frame of mind.  A chosen path of my will.  It is a position we take, in spite of the onrush of overwhelming and indiscriminate feelings that wash and crash upon the shores of our hearts.  I had to let go of my emotions.

Lo and behold, JOY was there.


3) Joy is revealed when we least feel like feeling it.

Yup.  As I said before, I did not want this word.  And certainly, I did not want to feel it when I wasn't *feeling it*.

Some of the moments in this year's journey?   Spooning food into my dad's mouth.  Trying to speak sense to a man who had fallen deep into dementia. Rubbing his brow, trying to return him, amidst thrashing and yelling, back to sleep.  Getting a call at 3:45 AM to tell me he was gone.  A funeral.  Going through his things.  Seeing his shoes under his workbench.  Caring for an increasingly helpless and confused mother.  Doing mindless and tiresome and menial chores.  Mourning the loss of "what was."  Confusion, confrontation, conflict.

There have been countless other things, too.  Personal stuff, financial stuff, health stuff.  Stuff that has brought the most brutal anxiety that I have ever felt.  Days when I thought I could not take another step.  Nights when I could not sleep.

Lo and behold, JOY was there.


4) Joy is not about us.

Uh, yeah.  One thing I learned is how much work God still needs to do inside of me to rid me of ME!  I truly thought that this whole joy journey was going to be about me.  Changing and re-forming me.  Shaping me.  Refining me. Transforming me.  And in many ways, this is what the journey was about, for sure.  But, at the end of the day, joy is not about me.  It's about Jesus.  He is the Source, and the Fount, and the Continuing River of Joy.

I learned that JOY is all about this one unchanging fact in my life.

Jesus, Only You.

And when I got my focus off of myself, and instead fixed my eyes upon the Savior…

Lo and behold, JOY was there.


5) Joy is created when we understand grace.

Grace – the awesome and incomprehensible Gift.

I'm convinced that most of us do not fully understand grace.  And that's because most of us don't understand the full horror of our sin.

Thankfully, because of Jesus, we don't have to.

If we so choose, we will never have to experience what it means to be completely separated from God.  Only Jesus, the perfectly sinless One, ever understood the black void of having God turn His back.

Grace is the offer made to us – the free gift of salvation.

And, when we understand and accept grace, when we receive the gift of redemption, when we comprehend the undeserved offer of forgiveness…

…when I fully contemplated the immensity of it…

Lo and behold, JOY was there.


6) Joy is the handmaiden of hope.

Hope is inextricably intertwined with Joy.  The two go hand-in-hand.  For it is the hope of God that brings us joy.  And it is His presence that brings me the uplifting sense of joy, bought by love, offered through grace, and upheld by the assurance of confident hope.

I spent a great amount of time this past year contemplating the thought that God is both before me and behind me.  What does this mean?

Considering the fact that my father's death was the biggest event of the year, and its most un-joy-full moment, I use this as a benchmark to evaluate this idea.

To me it means this:  God went before me into the difficult days of my father's injury and subsequent passing.  The Lord was there before I got there, and led me through it all.  How was He behind me?  On days when I was tempted to look back, and to question decisions, or regret negative thoughts, the Lord was also there.  His gentle hand told me to stop – don't go back – those days were also covered by Him.

So, before me ("Don't worry about the future, child") and behind me ("Don't dwell in the past, child") – HE IS THERE.

When I remember this…

Lo and behold, JOY is there.

7) Joy is anchored in eternity.

Though joy can be experienced in the here and now, its true value is rooted in eternity.

That is why Peter counsels us to look at the big picture, the long view.  He acknowledged that this life is full of trials.  Peter told us the truth.  But then he told us the Truth.  He encouraged us "to be truly glad" in our suffering and tribulation.

Why?

Because there is wonderful Joy ahead.

For our faith will bring much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world.

When I think about the sadness in this world, and how so many hearts are broken – and sometimes, even my own – I could be overcome with defeat and despair.  But when I look at the promise of Heaven, and an eternity with the Lord and faithful loved ones who have gone on ahead (including my dad, whom I will see again), I smile.

For though this life is hard, when I look to the sky…

Lo and behold, JOY is there.

I know this post is long, and I hope I'm not rambling.  But it's so important for me to reflect upon this year of JOY, and I hope in my reflecting, you find something of what JOY can mean for you.

Joy for me most often wasn't the big *cymbal* moment.  It was rather like the tiny tinkling of a bell, heard in the middle of difficult circumstances, sounding a quiet but reassuring message of hope.

I love the scene with Elijah and the Lord.

Sometimes I find myself wanting the "big" appearance of God, coming like a thunderstorm to fix everything that is wrong in my life.  But, more often than not, He arrives in a whisper.  But, a whisper can only be heard when someone has drawn very, very close to Him.  With God, that is more than enough.

For me, joy very often creeped – but it also seeped into every crevice of pain, and filled me up with the Love of God!


Yes, for my most difficult year, God chose the word Joy for me.

And He gave me Joy in ways I could not have fathomed beforehand. 

I didn't see it fully until now.  In the looking back I see.  I see Him.  His hands.  With Him nothing is wasted.  He used it all – the heartaches, the tears, the doubts, the suffering, the trials, the sleepless nights, the indeterminable days, the confusion, the fears, the endless questioning.

He used it all to teach me the fullest meaning of Joy, as only His heart could reveal it.

Joy is more than what I thought it was.  

And I have been blessed in the expanding.


Yes, this past year of my JOY journey was fraught with crazy and difficult circumstances.  

And I often wondered, "Really, Lord?  This is what joy is all about?"

And yet, as I look back, I see that He has quietly answered...

"Yes, this is what it’s all about.  It's about seeing Me."


What is it that I want from God?

Or do I really just want God?

There's a big difference.  And I am pondering the differences, and what a difference it will make if I only seek God for the sheer pleasure of knowing Him.

For indeed, when I seek Him…

Lo and behold, JOY is there!


Jesus, Only You!

Yes, amen, yes. 

Wrong will be right,
when Aslan comes in sight,
At the sound of his roar,
sorrows will be no more,
When he bares his teeth,
winter meets its death,
And when he shakes his mane,
we shall have spring again.

"We proclaim to you the one who existed from the beginning, whom we have heard and seen.  We saw him with our own eyes and touched him with our own hands.  He is the Word of life.  This one who is life itself was revealed to us, and we have seen him.  And now we testify and proclaim to you that he is the one who is eternal life...We are writing these things so that you may fully share our JOY.

This is the message we heard from Jesus and now declare to you: God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all...if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin." 
(From 1 John 1, NLT)

"Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your JOY." (John 16:22, NIV)

"And a great road will go through that once deserted land.  It will be named the Highway of Holiness.  Evil-minded people will never travel on it.  It will be only for those who walk in God's ways; fools will never walk there...Only the redeemed will walk on it.  Those who have been ransomed by the LORD will return.  They will enter Jerusalem singing, crowned with everlasting JOY. Sorrow and mourning will disappear, and they will be filled with JOY and gladness." (Isaiah 35:8-10, NLT)




What was your word for 2014, and what did you learn?




Linked with:

SHARING HIS BEAUTY, PLAYDATES WITH GOD, UNFORCED RHYTHMS, TELL ME A TRUE STORY, TITUS 2 TUESDAYS, MONDAYS AT SOUL SURVIVAL, UNITE, MAKE A DIFFERENCE MONDAY, GOOD MORNING MONDAYS, TESTIMONY TUESDAY, CHATTING AT THE SKY, WINSOME WEDNESDAY, A LITTLE R & R WEDNESDAYS, WHOLEHEARTED WEDNESDAYS, TELL HIS STORY, TEACHING WHAT IS GOOD, THREE WORD WEDNESDAY, SO MUCH AT HOME, COFFEE FOR YOUR HEART, COFFEE AND CONVERSATION, THOUGHTFUL THURSDAYS, FRIENDSHIP FRIDAY, HEARTS FOR HOME, FAITH FILLED FRIDAY, FELLOWSHIP FRIDAYS, A GROUP LOOK, FAITH AND FELLOWSHIP, SPIRITUAL SUNDAYS,  FELLOWSHIP FRIDAY, COUNTING MY BLESSINGS, SATURDAY SOIREE, STILL SATURDAY, WEEKEND BREW, SUNDAY STILLNESS, MISSIONAL WEEKEND, GIVE ME GRACE



BLOG = "Blessedly Leaning On God!"