Choosing Joy

The holidays inherently produce joy, right?! Wrong. Sometimes you must CHOOSE joy...even when you don't feel that joy some days.

It surprises me every year to hear that others around me aren't just floating through the holiday season full of natural joy either. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Christmas and I rejoice in the meaning of Christmas and love the traditions that go along with it. Unfortunately, it is also those traditions that make this season hard. Very hard. I knew going into this time of the year that it would be an emotional and difficult season for me because they always are...every holiday since January 27, 2009 has been turned into a bittersweet day.  Since January 27, 2009 I have loved celebrating the birth of Jesus, Thanksgiving, and birthdays...Unfortunately, I also grieve the traditions that go along with these joyous days and it's some of those traditions that I miss and long for.

Would it be easier to be JOYFUL during these holidays if I focused more on the REASON for the holiday than on the traditions that come with it that I miss so dearly?

After Trevor and I got married, the holidays didn't necessarily get easier, they were just different in the way that it was easier for me to find JOY in them! I had someone to celebrate these old traditions with as well as create new ones for our new family :) I have so much to be thankful for and when the person you love more than anyone on this earth is next to you, going through and even feeling the pain of these days with you, it is easier to find and feel that joy. Well this year, that person is over 7,000 miles away. 7,000 miles.... That is a lot of miles. Because of this distance, I have to choose joy. I don't say this lightly because honestly, even when I wake up in the morning saying that I am choosing to be joyful and thankful for this day, I don't always feel it. And it's okay if we don't always feel the things we believe, as long as we can choose to believe them despite our emotions. I shared with a friend last week that after my mom died, I didn't feel cherished. I was without a doubt my mama's number #1 priority on this earth and I know that she loved and cherished me more than anything on this side of Heaven. When I met my husband, I remembered what it was like to be someone's #1, as silly as that sounds. Trevor is so good at verbally affirming his love for me and how much he treasures me as his wife and I was quickly reminded of that need that I had that was now being filled by my husband. Well now that my sweet husband has been apart from me for 3 months, it is easy to feel as if I am grieving two people. Two people who I love so much. I have said this before and I'll say it again...Deployment is NOT a tragedy, but it is a loss. I have temporarily lost someone I love to this war. My husband is absolutely amazing and does such a good job of encouraging me, even from 7,000 miles away, I just simply miss having him in my presence.

These are a few things I've been reminded of this season...

The Lord cherishes me. He loves me. He treasures me. He will never leave or forsake me. He is the one I need to call out to when I am in a season of being alone and when my husband is here beside me. It is so easy as wives to expect our husbands to comfort us, carry our burdens, have all the answers to what we are struggling with, and encourage us. Unfortunately, no matter how amazing our husbands are, those are unrealistic expectations for ANY human being. God does instruct us to go to our husbands for encouragement and comfort, etc but He calls us to HIM to take refuge in and call out to. That's why we have a Savior...His name is Jesus.

Learning to calm my anxious heart

Last week I read one of the best books I've read in a longggg time! It was called "Calm My Anxious Heart" and it's by Linda Dillow. I can think of so many different situations this book could apply to and I feel like it convicted me in several different areas of my life. I strongly recommend it to everyone because we ALL become anxious and worry no matter what your story is...this book is incredible!

"For you formed my inward parts;
   you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works;
   my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,when I was being made in secret,
   intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;in your book were written, every one of them,
   the days that were formed for me,
   when as yet there was none of them." -Psalm 139:13-16

These are just a few things I learned from Linda Dillow's book about anxiety in my life...

• Philippians 4:6 says "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God." What does this mean? I don't think the bible is discounting anxiety or saying that it is unnatural to have it or that we should never have an anxious feelings come up...I think Paul is encouraging us to PRAY as soon as we become anxious. I like how Linda Dillow says that we have a CHOICE to pray or be anxious. Sadly, most of the time, we (myself included!) choose to be anxious instead of pray.
• We cannot "walk in anxiety and in faith"...If we are walking in anxiety and CHOOSING to be anxious, then we are not walking in faith. It's as if we are saying that God cannot take our anxiety away...that it is somehow too much for him. But how would we know that if we haven't even requested help from him through prayer? This quote really made me think...

"The beginning of anxiety is the end of faith. The beginning of faith is the end of anxiety." -George Muller

I didn't realize how many things I am constantly anxious about until I started picking up on my nervous habit of biting my lip. Gross, huh? Deployment and the idea of not knowing where we will live in the next year are both stressful and things that I am "perpetually" anxious about, most of the time without even realizing it. And then of course you add whatever anxiety that work may be causing or things going on in relationships because we all deal with these issues! I was talking about this with some friends last night as we were talking about our husbands safety while they are deployed and the biggest thing that every military wife fears... Will my husband come home? Will he come home uninjured? A sweet friend of mine told me something that I now cling to when I begin to get anxious about Trevor being gone... as a believer in God, all of our days are numbered; my days, my husbands days, and your days. God already knows the day that he will take Trevor from this earth and if it is tomorrow, then it would have been tomorrow whether he was deployed OR home with me. God is sovereign. So as believers, He formed us in our mother's wombs and we are fearfully and wonderfully made. The Lord knew each and every part of us when He created us along with each and every day of our life. If I truly believe in the authority of scripture (which I do!) then it would tell me that as I begin to feel anxious, I need to turn to God in prayer and ask to be reminded of these truths. I need to cling to him because he is my rock and he is whom I can take refuge in.

The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge. He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.- Psalm 18:2

A forced day of rest

I'm sure it's not a shock to anyone that I don't always rest well...I actually don't remember the last time I stayed at home for an ENTIRE day and didn't leave the house once, it's really hard for me to sit still and truly rest. While God has been teaching me to appreciate my alone time, there is a difference in being alone and truly resting. I can do ALL kinds of things alone... Go shopping, decorate the house, etc. 


Well I have been sick for the past 5 weeks... Would that be a red flag to anyone else?? Seriously. In October I had terrible sinus stuff going on and when I went to the doctor, I was told I had the "common cold." I remember thinking..."Great, I took off work to be told that I need to take some Mucinex and ibuprofen." So I'm sure you can imagine, the next time I got sick, I decided going to the doctor was not necessary! The first week in November I had a garage sale and sure enough, the night after the sale I started puking my guts out (lovely, huh?). So for about 24 hours I had the stomach flu... and it was DEF the stomach flu, there were moments where I thought I had never experienced that kind of pain. Well about a week after recovering from that (we're in mid November now...) I got another "common cold" as the doctor called it and decided to let it run it's course since there was nothing they could do for the first one. Well this one lasted about 10 days and it started going into my chest...bronchitis?? So I went to the doctor right? Wrong...I just decided I could fight this off with Mucinex too. To make a long story short, I started feeling 100% again during Thanskgiving, or what I thought was 100%...I even went back to the gym for cycling on Wednesday for the first time in a month! 


Well....Apparently my body rejected the gym because the next morning I woke up sick, AGAIN! At that point I was thinking....How in the world is this possible? I am a healthy active 24 year old that has been sick for a MONTH! Trevor and I started to slightly panic and started wondering if I have something wrong with my immune system, maybe an autoimmune disorder? Well of course with Trevor being so far away, he wanted me to go to the doctor and be seen for blood work ASAP...just to rule anything out! So back to the doctor I went... The first thing he says is "You have a bad ear infection and bronchitis...why didn't you come in sooner?" Ummmm hello, don't you remember telling me it was just a cold last time? Ugh. I am so tired of being sick... I really try not to complain because I really do have SO much to be thankful for, but my goodness...I just want to feel well again! I'm tired of friends and coworkers asking "How are you?" And me either constantly saying that I'm sick or pretty much lying and just saying "oh I'm okay..." I am not good at not being my normal happy/social self and this has kind of thrown a wrench in that!


So last night I revisited that pain I spoke about above...my whole body hurt and all I could do was lay in bed. My sweet husband called and I was an emotional wreck because of how miserable I was feeling and I very quickly felt even worse for him. He felt completely helpless being so far away when I have been so sick...poor guy. He loves me so much and just wants to be a hubby and take care of me. He made me promise I would call someone during the night if I felt any worse. 


Thankfully, my antibiotics started kicking in and I am already feeling much better than I was yesterday! Praise God! It's funny because I remember my mama telling me "Slow down or God is going to make you slow down" and I used to think that sounded like a threat and I wasn't a fan of hearing it. Unfortunately, she was right! Almost every time I find myself doing too much or really stressed out, I get sick. It's as if God is saying "I will force you to rest." So here I am, embracing my day of rest (or trying to ;))! I am almost done with a book I've been reading and have LOVED...I'll be blogging about that next! So for today, even thought I am super sad I'm not at a friends house doing a cookie exchange, I see a lot of cheesy chic flicks in my future along with possibly getting some Christmas presents wrapped, and starting a new book! Of course, all with Sophie...She's the best company you could ask for on a sick day!