Ruled by Our Human Emotions - Happiness

Happiness is a  co-dependent emotion.  It is completely and totally dependant upon a right set of circumstances.  The right gift.  The right friendship.  The right marriage.  The right home.  The right job.  The right small group.  The right relationship with your kids.  The right car.

The list is endless.


Let one piece of our circumstances change and our happiness meter gets totally out of whack.

I even hear my little girls say, "I'm not happy."  

And when I inquire as to why, they say, "Btuz I want that doll," or "Btuz I want apple juice."

Even in their short-lived lives, they have learned that happiness, their happiness, is dependant upon getting what they want or what they think they need.

We, as adults, are equally conditioned to think that our happiness is dependant upon getting what we want or think we need.

But happiness is fleeting and fickle and self-serving. 

Joy, on the other hand, is completely different than happiness.  Joy is a contentment that defies the weighty gravity of conditional happiness.  It's an inner peace that passes all understanding.  It's a support structure for our spirit.  It props us up on really bad days, and it delights us and compels us forward on really good ones.

Joy is a gift that we are given.  A gift we must receive.  But sadly, we miss the precious, soul-feeding contentment of joy because we are so freaking caught up in worrying about our happiness.

All that to say, happiness is fleeting and self-serving.  Choose joy.

Just out of curiosity, what makes you happy, 

and what brings you joy?

Joy Comes

"Some days are diamonds.  Some days are stones.  Some times the hard times won't leave me alone."

If you're old enough to recognize these lyrics, you'll know they are from a song written by storyteller and songwriter, John Denver.

And for some reason, I woke up today with this song in my head.

I find that each day I awaken is a crapshoot in terms of my emotions.  I've been encouraged that this is normal.  That I'm a mere five months away from a life-changing event in my life.  That I should cut myself some slack.

But I'm a "pick-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps-and-get-on-with-it" kind of girl.  So I'm not so good in the "cutting myself some slack" department.

I woke up this morning, early, not by choice, but decided to use the time to sit quietly before the Lord.

He was silent.

Or maybe I wasn't.

It's most likely the latter than the former.

I awakened with a heavy heart for no particular reason.  Perhaps I dreamed dreams that bore a weight only my spirit perceived.  Even His Word, normally quite comforting, seemed like print on a page. And though it said, "the joy comes with the morning," I felt no sense of that; only a deep longing for the truth of it.

Then my morning beckoned me (and by "my morning" I mean two singing four year olds who had awakened at 4:30a.m. and never fully gone back to sleep), so I closed my Bible, sighed heavily, and headed upstairs to quieten the "morning" before it awakened my husband who worked most of the night.

I confess, I was quite frustrated as I walked up the stairs to their room.  Was there no peace to be found this morning?  And then I opened their door.

And the whitest eyes grinned at me in the darkness.  And the sweetest voices said, "Good Morning, Mommy."

All that to say, funny thing about the Lord.  Sometimes he uses what we see in the darkness to bring light to our troubled minds.  I love that about him.  He's a "teachable moment" kind of guy.

"And though the sorrows will last for the night, His joy comes in the morning." - Psalm 30:5

Better Living

I have decided that life is something we either choose to live or to survive. I think what made me think this today is that I was looking back through my road trip pictures and realized that most everything we enjoyed was simple life stuff. Sure we enjoyed the museums and the beautiful scenery, but mostly we enjoyed one another.

The things we laughed at the most were just normal things. We laughed about getting caught in the rain, and riding on the subway, and discovering that our windows rolled down in the car. We laughed about getting parking tickets and cows in open fields and horse poop. We people watched and laughed at our own stupidity over people watching.

We savored our meals together and enjoyed really simple foods as much as we did rich fattening ones. We were goofy and gave up being critical and laughed 'til our sides hurt over our own shortcomings. A trip to Walmart was a chance to enjoy one another's company. Wrong turns were cause for laughter and getting lost was just another adventure.

I think we're supposed to enjoy life that way. We could have chosen to get mad over ruined shoes and rain storms. We could have gotten angry over wrong turns in the middle of the night and getting lost even with the help of a navigation system.

But instead, we chose joy. We chose laughter. We chose to enjoy one another and our time together.

All that to say, what if we lived every day like that? What if each day, I chose joy? Better living comes with better choices.