Choose Joy

Choosing joy is one of my favorite topics. In my granddaughter, Sadie Robertson Huff’s new book, she says that joy isn’t a feeling of fluffy happiness, but a hard-won choice. What does she mean by that? 

At 70 years old, I am very aware that life doesn’t hand us joy on a silver platter. 

In fact, life is more likely to hand us heaping helpings of sadness, sickness, and sorrow. I’m sorry to paint a picture of gloom and doom, but this world is not our home. Right? 

When I was growing up, I had a dad who was the eternal optimist. His glass was always half-full and never half empty, if you understand that expression. Like many from his generation, he came from hardship. His mom was a single mom after kicking out his acholic daddy. In the third grade, he started cleaning the school building to make extra money. He entered the Marine Corp at 18 years old, so he could one day go to college using his GI Bill, which he finally did. He attended college, getting an engineering degree while also supporting a wife and five children. He had a hard life growing up. 

Do you think it did any good for any of his six children to whine and complain about anything? 

I’ll answer that. No. it did not. Daddy spent his entire life choosing joy and his children were taught to do the same. 

In my early twenties I heard the expression “If you can’t change your situation, change your attitude.” and I immediately thought of my daddy. He learned at an early age that his situation wasn’t going to be great, but he could be joyful anyway. And that’s how he lived his life. 

Daddy accepted Jesus as his savior when I was four years old. I remember him and my mom going to church to be “baptized”. From that point on, my daddy didn’t just choose joy; he chose to use the joy he had to serve others and advance the kingdom of God. He served others until he went on to his heavenly reward many years ago.

Being joyful is a choice. There’s power in choosing joy when the circumstances don’t warrant it. When my husband was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer at just 48 years old, it was hard to choose joy. When my parents were mugged, it was hard to choose joy. When I was diagnosed with a rare blood disorder, it was hard to choose joy. When my baby swallowed a safety pin, it was hard to choose joy. I could go on and on–because that’s life. In all those circumstances, while we weren’t throwing confetti and blowing horns, we still recognized that God is good, and our hearts were full of joy because we trusted Him to take care of the situation. 

When we’re able to do that, we discover that choosing joy gives us a resilience that goes way beyond the external circumstance. With each “choose joy” moment, we grow that “joy” muscle and toughen up for the hard times. We develop a resilience that allows us to hang on to hope when a relative is sick or dying, when we lose a job opportunity, when a relationship is broken, when a natural disaster destroys a home. Each “choose joy moment or hour or year” makes us a stronger person. 

It also increases our capacity for compassion for others as we show others that a life that looks to Jesus is a life that can be joyful even on the hard days. When we show others that joy and hard times can occupy that same space, we are showing them a life that is real and is full of hope and promise because we serve a risen king, who suffered and died on a cross for us. 

Today, whatever you are going through, choose joy as it’s companion. 

Hugs, Chrys