Joy Challenge

Joy today is being able to stay home and to have a poop breakthrough with my little man. For almost a month, we have been struggling with some potty issues. Several weekend and late night calls to the on call nurses, several trips to the doctor, pharmacy and a natural foods and herbalist, calling on a friend from church to help administer an enema (she has lots of experience) and finally, today maybe, just maybe, we may have moved a step closer to some regularity and getting rid of his pain. Yes, it did cost me the area rug in my living room, but if that is what it takes to get things moving good, that is fine. So today in my joy challenge, I find joy in being home and cleaning poop off my floors and celebrating the fact there is poop!

Finding Joy

"I've got the Joy, Joy, Joy, down in my heart! Where?! Down in my heart!" A song from long ago that I sung so many times in Sunday school and at home as a little girl. Yet now as a grown woman, that joy is just not down in my heart. It is the thing I have been trying to rediscover. I have come to the realization that a lot of why I don't have joy is because of sin. That is the simplest explanation. It wasn't done on purpose. It just happened. I was not intentional or disciplined in making God a priority in my choices. I didn't maintain the relationship. All the wonderful ministry I do just doesn't build or strengthen a relationship with God. He doesn't want my emails, my flyers, my plans or my organization. He wants me and my heart. My desire to seek Him and follow hard after Him in obedience. So lost in the years of going it all on my own is the joy I have lost out of my heart.
I was challenged by an amazingly wise lady, Holley Gerth, to look for joy in the next 40 days. I have become more intentional and aware of the things that bring me joy. What I realize is that the joy I cherish and long for comes from the relationships with my family and with my Savior. When those relationships are neglected or considered to be secondary to my own agenda and to do lists, that is when the joy leaves my heart. There is nothing that squashes joy like sin. Sin and putting relationships second, third, fourth or sixteenth on the list are often synoymnous. So as I search for the joy each day, I focus more on maintaining relationships with the people I have been blessed with and with the Savior and Creator of my life. With this daily intentional search I know that the joy will be "down in my heart to stay!"

Waiting Some More

The past few months have been filled with me doing a lot of thinking and searching. I will admit that I haven't searched hard enough or intentionally enough - Why? Because I am too preoccupied with committments I can't drop, kids, house, my own plans and fear. Fear that what I may discover will lead to some changes or hard decisions about a lot of stuff. I have read and studied about finding and following God's Will - His Lead in my life. I have sought counsel from some other women who found themselves in similiar places. I have discussed this with my wise and wonderful hubby. I have tried to go slower and be more intentional about my plans, choices, activities. But alas, I have still met frustration and feelings of failure and incompetancy head on each day.
Over and over this summer, I have read or heard about waiting on God. Be still, abide with Him, seek Him, wait on Him, wait, be still, seek, abide, wait.... So, I will tell you that when I read with Beth Moore the scripture basis for her simulcast, I caught my breath. (Yes, I did not read beforehand as the afore mentioned committments took priority). The scripture was from Psalm 37:1-9.
In these verses, David tells me to "trust", "dwell", "delight", "commit", "trust" again, "rest" , "wait patiently" and "wait" again.
The primary verse was verse 4 - This is where I was totally blown away- "Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart." This verse appeared in book by Lisa Whelchel for moms wanting to study the Bible more. I pick up this book about once a year and this past week, read this verse and spent some time thinking about it - word by word. It was a wonderful and peaceful, joy-giving time with one little verse out on my deck in the quiet and cool of a late August morning. Then a few days later, I am honored to sit and listen to a great speaker share her thoughts and study on that verse and how it all relates to the waiting, trusting, resting, abiding, being still and finding joy. For so long, I have desired joy in my life again. Why don't I have joy anymore? Holley Gerth from Dayspring is in the middle of a 40 day challenge to find joy each day. I have taken the challenge and look for the joy moments. So again when this was the scripture of the Friday night and Saturday morning sessions with Beth Moore, I was thrilled, amazed and scared because I know that God has something for me to know from this. But then the ride home, I continued reading a book by Lysa TerKeurst, Becoming More Than a Good Bible Study Girl, It just was released this week to stores. But it came in the mail right before we left. Anyway, I heart Lysa and her writing and read on the return trip about David waiting following being annointed by Samuel. Yes, waiting again. Lysa gave me further thought on this subject. Did I mention that one night last week before we left, I spent about an hour in the floor of Little Man's room, reading by the light of his night light about the Greek and Hebrew words for waiting.? Yes, I did! Spurred by the reading of someone else's comment somewhere in cyberspace about the meaning of the word. I just needed more information and to see it for myself. Wait - Wait - Wait- something most of us can't stand to do or to do for very long. Personally, I am curious about what I am waiting for and why- Does it have to do with my desires or the heart of my desires? There is more to be thought about and prayed about - ah, there may be my answer or the way to the answer.

Until then, I will DELIGHT MYSELF IN THE LORD

So this Tuesday, I am grateful for Waiting - for Beth Moore, Lisa Whelchel and Lysa TerKeurst and tons of other ladies leading me on this journey