Choose Joy!

I think the thing that God has been teaching me most about this year is that joy is a choice. I keep coming back to this over and over again as God has been teaching me to live with joy despite the pain that I live with. While I am not there yet and some days are more difficult than others and it is hard to choose joy, I live by faith that God has a purpose for my life and I have hope that one day I will be pain free and run to Jesus' open arms.
Joy is a choice that I need to make every day...through the questions, through the pain - so I choose to live with joy and to allow God to refine me through the rain.

When I need a reminder, I listen to the song Bring the Rain by MercyMe which has been a huge encouragment to me in the last year and is a reminder that I need to choose joy.

I can count a million times
People asking me how I
Can praise You with all that I've gone through
The question just amazes
Can circumstances possibly
Change who I forever am in You
Maybe since my life was changed
Long before these rainy days
It's never really ever crossed my mind
To turn my back on you, oh Lord
My only shelter from the storm
But instead I draw closer through these times

So I pray
Bring me joy, bring me peace
Bring the chance to be free
Bring me anything that brings You glory
And I know there'll be days
When this life brings me pain
But if that's what it takes to praise You
Jesus, bring the rain

I am yours regardless of
the clouds that may loom above
because You are much greater than my pain
You who made a way for me suffering
Your destiny so tell me whats a little rain

Holy, holy, holy.
Holy, holy, holy
is the Lord God Almighty
is the Lord God Almighty
I'm forever singing

The following is part of a talk that I gave in assembly at the beginning of the year. Our theme for this year is R U 4 Real? and challanging students to be real about their faith. I was real with them about my struggle with pain and God working in my heart to get me to the point when I can choose joy...I hope that it can be an encouragement to you...

I have had people ask me how I can still praise God with all that I have been through – I sometimes feel as though people put me on a pedestal because I live with pain and they tell me that God has a plan for all of this – and while I know that I God has a plan for my life and I desire that my life glorify God through this time of suffering – there have been many days when I have questioned why God has caused this in my life, many days when I have been discouraged – but even through those tough times, I am reminded that God is good – that the things I go through in life don’t change who I am in Christ – Nothing can change who I am in Christ – In Christ I am forever loved and forever being shaped into the image of God. God is with me every step of the way and he is the only one who can give me the strength that I need to get through every day.

God is my only shelter through this storm and he has drawn me closer to Himself through my pain because I cant do it on my own – I don’t think that I could make it, living with this pain, if it were not for the hope I have in Christ that He is with me and the faith that He will see me though. It has not been easy and while there may be many tough days ahead, I cling to the hope that the God who created my inmost being (extra bone and all), will continue to perfect me for the work that he has called me to.

Through all of this suffering, God has been teaching me to respond with JOY to choose to live with Joy everyday. It is easy to have Joy and to praise God when things in life are going good but we are called to praise God at all times.

The chorus of this song has been my prayer – something I pray every morning when I get up and every night when I go to bed. This is a scary prayer for me – if I ask God to bring me anything that brings HIM glory then I am choosing to accept with joy what God brings in my life and to allow God to continue to mold me and refine me. The Bible does not tell us that life will be easy and that we will never have pain – but it does offer us a joy, peace and freedom. The things that you are going through or will go through, don’t change who you are in Christ – the Bible tells us that God will never leave us nor forsake us – we need to run to him with open arms during our dark times and He promises to give us joy and peace and freedom and he desires that our lives be glorifying to him.

I may never know why God has allowed me to suffer, but I do know that I am changed as a result of it. I am not there yet – there are still very difficult days when I don’t want to have joy and when I don’t want to praise God, but the hope and trust that I have in God is stronger and it is through God’s grace that I am allowed to suffer and to be refined.
My journey is not over yet…
Some days are very difficult but the only way I make I through is by having hope and praying daily that God brings me JOY.

One of my favorite books is called Hinds Feet on High Places and it is an allegory or a story that is about a girl named Much Afraid who is called by the Shepherd to go to the High Places with him. Much Afraid as you can tell by her name is afraid because she is lame and does not think she can make it to the high places where only hinds can go (deer). Throughout the story Much Afraid learns to accept how she was made and allows the Shepherd to be her strength. I think one of the reasons that I like this book is that I can relate to Much Afraid because I too needed to learn to rely on my Shepherd for my strength.

In the sequel to this book there is a passage where Much Afraid (whose name was changed to Grace and Glory after reaching the High Places) is talking with the shepherd about Joy. This is what the Shepherd says…

There is absolutely no experience, however terrible, or heartbreaking, or unjust, or cruel, or evil, which you can meet in the course of your earthly life, that can harm you if you let me teach you how to accept it with joy; and to react to it triumphantly as I did Myself, with love and forgiveness and the willingness to bear the results of wrong done by others. Every trial, every test, every difficulty and seemingly wrong experience through which you may have to pass, is only another opportunity granted to you of conquering an evil thing and bringing out of it something to the lasting praise and glory of God. You sons and daughters of Adam, in all your suffering and sorrow are the most privileged of all beings, for you are to be perfected through suffering and to become the sons and daughters of God with his power to overcome evil with good. If only you realized your destiny, how you would rejoice at every experience of trial and tribulation and even in the persecution that comes your way. You will “count it all JOY.” You would take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, and distresses for Christ’s sake “for when you are weak, then you learn how to be made strong.”

Psalm 86:4 – bring Joy to your servant, for to you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.

Joy is a choice…Choose JOY today and watch God work in your heart.