Joy! Journey With Me - Week One

Recently I shared God’s prompting to make JOY my word for this year. Though it goes against my present circumstances and even against my very nature right now I found this word impossible to ignore. As I said in my last blog, I didn’t choose joy, it chose me.

But that doesn’t mean I don’t have to work at it every single day. In the spirit of doing so, I realize God’s Word is key. There is a natural arrangement and result when we deliberately train our minds and fix our thoughts. What we practice and profess does help determine what we produce.

As a mom, I said often to my kids growing up, “garbage in, garbage out.” They might have occasionally rolled their eyes at me, but it's true, if we are going to allow ourselves to watch, read or listen to ugly messaging, it is going to ultimately affect us. We have to be careful what we open the door to and invite in. Makes sense, right? My kids are probably more prone to believe me now that they have lived a little. 

I’ve always found Philippians 4:8 to be a good guardrail or filter. It instructs us to “think on these things.”  What things? “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” 

Think on THESE things.

For me, joy isn’t going to “just happen” because I wrote a blog post about it. Not even because I claimed it as my 2025 word. Nope. It will take much more on my part. It will take a good bit of deliberation, dedication, and, ultimately, doing something. 

Psalm 119:11 reminds, “Your word I have hidden in my heart…”

Hebrews 12: 2 instructs, “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith …”

The Bottom Line: If I am serious about pursuing JOY this year I am going to have to get busy hiding God’s word in my heart and fixing my eyes on Him. 

Hiding and fixing — Notice these are, indeed, words of action!  So often we feel we can't do anything. And maybe we can't do anything to change our circumstances, but we CAN DO something to change ourselves. 

So, that’s the plan starting today. What’s more, I’d love to invite YOU along for the ride. Each week I will share a different JOY verse which I will be memorizing + meditating upon. I am 100% open to some company. There’s nothing to sign up for and nothing to buy, but let me know if you’re willing to walk along this road a bit with me.

Zero pressure, but it sure does feel like most everyone I talk to these days is desiring a little more joy in their life. If that’s the case, we can do something about it! 

We can’t always control our circumstances — our disappointments, disasters, diagnoses, demands, difficulties, debilitations — but we can absolutely DECIDE how we are going to respond to them and in them.  

That’s where joy comes in.

Each Sunday night or Monday morning I plan to share a JOY verse for us to memorize and meditate upon for that week. God’s word is powerful and it becomes even more alive when we choose to massage it deeply into our most vulnerable places.

Joy Verse Week One:

“Weeping may tarry for the night, but JOY comes with the morning.” Psalm 30:5

It has been a verse I’ve held close since I was young. I remember reading it after a high school break up. Silly now, maybe. But back then I remember being So Sad. So crushed. So rejected and the truth of this verse struck me maybe for the first time in my young life.

As miserable as I was all night long, things looked a little different in the light of new day. Nothing had changed. My circumstances hadn’t altered. My boyfriend and I were still broken up. But, yet, something had somehow shifted in the light of morning.

That shift allowed me a little glimpse into the truth that I would be okay. I would get through this. I would not weep over this boy the rest of my life or, truth be told, even the rest of that week. LOL. [Gotta love high school romances].

That’s a silly little, long, long, long ago story, but I use it to illustrate the idea of how different things can look between night and day. 

Nighttime is so often hard for me. I assure you I am not weeping about boyfriends anymore (SUCH a funny thought)! No, it's heavier stuff these days.  In those middle of the night hours I am easy prey. I am open for attack. I am vulnerable. It is when the “what ifs” wrestle with me most. It is when I worry most. It is when I weep most. 

And yet each morning when I rise and see the sun and anticipate the new day, the joy somehow bubbles up inside me in ways I cannot begin to explain.  It declares over me a fresh start, a new beginning, anticipation and expectation. I find myself almost surprised. How can this even be? It is, truly, a night and day difference. That simple shift from night to day is everything. I don’t even quite understand how it happens. But it does. And the Bible tells me that is how it works. And, yet, still I find myself baffled. 

I want to remind you (and me) whatever we are going through isn’t forever. Not even me with a terminal diagnosis. It is not forever. Weeping may tarry for the night, but JOY comes in the morning.

Let’s remind ourselves of that truth this week. 

So for this first week of my JOY journey let’s go ahead and do the following —

MEMORIZE Psalm 30:5 

MEDITATE upon it.

and MASSAGE God’s promise into our most vulnerable places this week. 

Yes, there's not always much we can do about that weeping at night, but we can remind ourselves that in the new light of day, we will find a bit of joy again. We might have to look. We might have to choose. We might even have to chase it, but, rest assured, it will be found.

 “Weeping may tarry for the night, but JOY comes with the morning.” ~ Psalm 30:5