He's Where the Joy Is

 "He's where the joy is!"

Those are the words that Tara-Leigh Cobble says at the end of every day's "The Bible Recap" video lesson. I've been keeping up with the reading, so today is lesson 115. Just as expected, I'm learning a ton & restoring my love for reading God's Word. I feel like this will be something I will continue to do, year after year. There's just SO much goodness in the Bible and Tara-Leigh's daily teaching is so great at connecting it all together, and making it come to life! So if you are wanting to grow in your faith & in your knowledge of Scripture - I encourage you to jump into the lessons today. You'll be so glad you did. 

What's on my heart this morning is the fullness of those words: God IS where the joy is. 

When life is throwing you some curveballs, and the tears come faster than the smiles...He's where the joy is.

When you're walking through a really challenging situation, and your stomach is tied up in knots with worry...He's where the joy is.

When the world would look at your situation and call it hopeless...He's where the joy is.

Joy does not mean the absence of tears or grief or worry.

Joy means you know where your comfort comes from. 

It means you're full of hope & anticipation for what's ahead.

I'm clinging to that today.

How does this look in reality? I can share what I'm doing, and see if it's helpful for you.

• Saturating my brain with worship music & Scripture. As I'm walking through some really hard things, I'm trying to be very careful what I fill my mind with. I went onto Apple Music and had it play "Hard Fought Hallejuah", and then I'm just letting it play whatever worship music it wants after that. In my car and at work, if there's music on, it's only worship music. And I'll open "The Bible Recap" and let it read me the Scriptures out loud too. There's something so encouraging about filling your mind up with God's Truth. 
• Processing my emotions daily. Thankfully, my life coaching toolbox is full of great tools for this. I kind of touched on them in a recent post, so I won't go into detail here. But the key thing here is that I'm not ignoring my emotions or trying to cover them up. I'm giving myself permission to FEEL them and let them process through. Through journaling and prayer and tapping and tears...the hard emotions are being allowed to process through my body. I'm not bottling it all up. I'm processing it. 
• Walking & talking with my husband. Since emotions are processed through the body (not through thinking about them), this kind of goes along with the previous post. But I'm listing it separately because of the power that's found in it. Walking outside is its own special healer. But walking outside with your spouse and processing your emotions together? This feels like sacred work. My husband is my best friend. And he knows the depth of my hurts more than anyone else on this earth. Being able to spend 40-60 minutes, multiple days a week, having a "walk & talk" with him? It's probably one of the main reasons this season of hard hasn't taken me down. 
• Having my own life coach. Even though I know the tools and I am really good at self-coaching, there's just something powerful about having someone else help me work through the hurt. Both in the form of life coaching & Splankna sessions, I am choosing to seek help whenever I need it. 
• Choosing thoughts that serve me. We each get to decide the lens we view things through. And just because something is "true" doesn't mean it's "beneficial." I want my thoughts to be full of the Spirit, not the flesh. If Jesus wouldn't think it, I don't want to either. Obviously, I have a lot of unhelpful (un-Jesus-like) thoughts I'm having to purge on a regular basis. But no one else is in charge of or responsible for MY thoughts. Only me. I really do try to think thoughts about every situation that are Philippians 4:8 worthy: true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy. Thankfully, I have a lot of people in my life who can be a mirror to my thoughts and help me recognize the ones that need a little tune-up. 
• Which brings me to my last point: I surround myself with people who make me a better person. I am SO thankful for my family & friends who regularly point me to Jesus. And I'm also thankful for the podcasts I listen to that do the same. Like that "Jerry Maguire" quote from almost 20 years go ("You make me want to be a better man."): I have a circle of people who make me want to be a better human. They encourage me, pray for (and with) me, help me find the good (even when my brain wants to only focus on the hurt). My circle might be small..but they're mighty.

Part of knowing God is where the joy is, is knowing His promises are true. And that's why saturating my brain with His Word is so important. The more I read His Word, the more I fall in love with Him. I'm just so thankful - despite the hurts and hard of this world - He IS where my joy is.