A few weeks ago I cleaned up my room and came across my old
year books and decided to crack them open and see what kind of memories lay
within the pages. They were filled with
H.A.G.S, K.I.T, AIM screen names, home phone numbers, and “see you next year”
messages. Ha-ha wow, I’m really showing
my age here: P after glancing over at
all the signed pages, I inevitably had to go my school pictures…
That’s where I was surprised with a little lesson from God.
While looking through all my pictures I was reminded of the
things I had experienced over the years, the good, the bad, and yes I’m going
to say ugly (I saw the end of that western movie boooooring...”
Then I came across this…
Me Sophomore year of high school, don't you just love the shirt that matches this lovely expression haha
Needless to say mom was NOT pleased…I don’t remember the
punishment….probably because it was so bad I am repressing it ha-ha
Anyway, as I’m looking at this oh so angsty teenage mug shot
of a school picture, I started tearing up…
Ha-ha Yup that’s right, I just start crying over some silly
picture, but it wasn’t from embarrassment, it wasn’t from remembering something awful that
happened that year (to be honest it was
kind of a blah year), and it wasn’t because no longer having that shirt (I really did like that shirt)
They were tears of joy!
This is probably 1 out of less than 5 moments I have
actually been so joyful I cried!
Well if you don’t
mind me going back a smidge farther, last month I gave my testimony to a ladies
small group I co-lead with one of my buddies from “The Mix”. It was tough, but it went really well and
received a lot of encouraging feed-back!
So back to my original train of thought…
When I saw this picture, and at the same time thought about
what I mentioned in my testimony I couldn’t believe out of all the people who have
come in and out of my life and out of all the awful things I have endured…James
1:2-4 is completely dead on!
“Consider it pure JOY
my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you
know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance
finish its work so that you may be mature and complete not lacking anything.”
The last several months I have been so much happier and
that’s crazy because I’m not even taking anti-depressants! So the only real explanation is that my joy
has to have come from some crazy other worldly source…like….I don’t know….going
on a hunch….but I think it could be from the Holy Spirit….lol
According to Galatians 5:22, one of the fruits of the Spirit
is in fact “joy”
Acknowledging that my joy is coming from the Holy Spirit,
THAT’S when I started crying. The reason
I have been doing so well is because I finally decided to tell God EVERYTHING I
was thinking and feeling, no matter how unholy it sounded. I held NOTHING back when it came to opening
up to Him. Whether it was as trivial as
feeling sad because I was feeling left out of something, or I was so angry I had nothing but obscenities
pouring out of my mouth...God already knows what is going on in my heart. So
why bother trying to sugar coat my prayers?!?
It was because of this way of praying that I was able to
calm down regardless of what I was thinking or feeling and find peace (also a
fruit mentioned in Gal. 5:22), and in that peace I found joy from relief from
the burdens, and then the strength needed to take on whatever came to me. I got to agree with Nehemiah when he said
“For the joy of the LORD is your strength” (Neh. 8:10)
Understanding and applying joy to my life as helped me have
a more positive attitude! Sure I still
have a lot of things I still struggle with when it comes to following Christ’s
ways….but having at least the prayer aspect down is sure going to help!
