I don’t have all the answers, but I like to pretend I do.
I can’t fake cry. But I cry at everything.
*Okay, not everything. Maybe only 70% of things. When I was little, I would cover our ivory piano keys with my tears on a daily basis. Since then I’ve moved on from the keyboard to my shower.
When you cry in the shower no one notices.
And sometimes it just feels so dang good.
I also have been realizing how much we’re in a fight, as humans. An internal fight.
A fight for our joy.
A fight for our clarity.
A fight for peace.
Never once did I give this much thought. I always thought happy people had happy kids. Adults who were known for joy would pass on the secrets to their kids and they, in turn, would be joyful.
I always wanted my mom’s joy and thought I would get it by DNA default. Or that I had it and would acquire it as I grew older.
My mom’s joy is the glitter in our family’s life.
It’s not a cheesy Hallmark line, it’s the truth.
I have always said it.
Her joy is the glitter in our lives.
But the kind of like an envious younger sister, I have always wanted it.
I wanted her joy.
Little did I know I had, like her, to fight for my joy.
There’s a song that most kids know that sings “Be careful little eyes what you see… Be careful little ears what you hear…”
Then an adult revision came along and reminded us all that it’s a “slow fade when we give our hearts away, kingdoms never crumble in a day…”
And I truly love that song. So much #truth.
Yet it never hit me.
Just like we have to fornicate our minds to not to let the bad things in, we must put up hedges of protection to not let the good things out.
We must FIGHT for our joy.
We must put up barricades to protect our hope.
A friend and mentor told me recently to be careful with my “brain space” as she called it. Be careful what we think about, what we dwell on, what our thinking is consumed by. The same can be applied to our joy.
True joy comes from the Lord. True joy cannot (and will not) be taken away from the world. So we need to stop letting it in. We need to build up walls, put people in place, to help us stop it from attempting to penetrate our joy.
There will be days when we are not happy.
There are days when we don’t smile.
There will be days when we want to spend the whole day crying in the shower.
And THAT’S OKAY.
It’s okay to not be okay for a little bit.
Just don’t let those circumstances steal your hope.
Don’t let that situation steal your joy.
Because your joy comes from the Lord, and what the Lord gives,
the world cannot take away.
