Choosing Joy

I have an app in my phone called Echo. It is a prayer app where I can record people I’m praying for. My list keeps growing. There are so many hurting people! Illnesses and disease, setbacks and struggles, parents praying for children, children praying for parents, friends praying for friends, lonely people, hurt people. Sometimes, these needs overwhelm me with feelings of helplessness and sadness.

Maybe you feel the same way. Maybe you are struggling with something in your life that makes you feel like you’re drowning. Or like you live in a deep, dark cave. And you feel like you can’t catch your breath, or you fear that you’ll never see the light of day.

The words in my Savor devotional are really helping me these past few days. {I’ve talked about Savor before here, but related to food in this post.} Yesterday Shauna wrote about choosing joy when I was having a really down morning. I loved these lines: It’s rebellious, in a way, to choose joy, to dance, to love your life. It’s much easier and much more common to be miserable.

And then today, she got even closer to the mark with these words: I don’t know where you are these days, what’s broken down and what’s beautiful in your life this season. I don’t know if this is a season of sweetness or one of sadness. But I’m learning that neither lasts forever. … Anything can happen in a year. Broken down, shattered things can be repaired in a year. Hope can grow in a year, after a few seasons of lying dormant.

Those words give me hope. My friends’ prayers give me hope. Scripture gives me hope.

If you are in a sweet season, that’s wonderful! Cherish it! Because it might not be sweet forever. But if you, like me, are in a wintery season, then do as Shauna suggests: practice believing in springtime. It always, always comes, even though on days like today it’s nearly impossible to imagine.

A friend of mine who is walking a similar road shared a song with me today that will be my new theme song for this season. I hope it brings you hope as it did me.