Find Your Joy!

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Can you find the joy in your day?  Can you find the happy spot in your day?  When you ask your kids about their day, do they tell you the negative or positive stuff?
I realized there was joy missing from my daughter's life and she is only 5!!  When I asked her about her day, all she would tell me about was who got in trouble….or who made her mad…  One day after I noticed the pattern I said “did anything good happy today?” And she said “nope.” Houston WE HAVE A PROBLEM!  I said “hold on nothing good happened today?!?” She looks at me like I’m crazy “no momma! Nothing!” I say “hold on baby, someone had to make you laugh? Somebody did something funny today!!” She says “nope…” with a look that says can we please turn on the tv now……
I ponder this for a few days….I ask God about this….  I wait…...
I hear a little voice that says “thank me every night for 3 good things..”
That night at bedtime I said “let's pray tonight and thank God for 3 good things that happened today.”  At first it was a struggle, but before we started our prayer we thought about the three good things.. After much debate, I think she decided to “thank Jesus for the candy she had after school, that she got to paint her nails, and that we had lasagna for dinner!”


The joy in the day can be the candy bar you had at lunch if everything else is crap for the day!  
The joy in the day can be when you walk into your home and lock the world away (but not all the time)!  
The joy can be the fact that you have a home at all.  
The joy can be that you have a car that is broken down and you have the money to fix that POS!  
The point is that you decide how bad your day is.  You decide if life you happened to you. You decide if you are happy.  You can look at everything that's bad and broken, or you can look at the beautiful broken pieces of the puzzle and build your life with them.
If you are struggling, these are some things I do to find the joy in my day!
I ask God to show me the joy.  Especially when it's been a crappy day!!!


Joy is a gift from God.  It is everywhere. It is every day.  We just have to find it.
Do not decide the day was bad because of difficulties.  Find the joy in the difficulty.
Living close to God, you find joy in even in the most difficult days.  
What does living close to God look like you say?  It is visualizing Jesus at your right hand walking.. (this is the Jesus I imagine)


When you decide you have Jesus at your right hand, you decide that there is a purpose for everything.  Literally everything. You realize that life is so much bigger than yourself. You realize that you are small but at the same time meant to do something.  You realize that the struggle has a bigger purpose. You realize that person that is mad at you is probably dealing with something more than you know so you have grace for them.  Grace is giving people a little slack!


Giving a little slack to yourself will give you more Joy than any other thing you could do… Laugh during the chaos. Don’t allow something or someone to make you miserable.  Every single one of us has something joyful in our life. It may be the air we breath or the filthy toddler screaming at you in the backseat… But there is something or someone to be thankful for. And if you only point out the negative and only speak negative, YOU ARE crushing your own joy.   
Don’t allow anyone to take your joy, not even yourself.  
The next time you are having a pity party think of this:
If you woke up tomorrow and only had what you thanked God for yesterday, what would you have left?
I saw that on Facebook and it kicked pretty hard in the belly….
All those things you would miss - those are your joy!  Find your joy even if it’s small and hold on to that because tomorrow is a different day.
Be Different Folks!

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