Fight for Joy!!

Those are the words that keep crossing my mind and heart this morning. My first morning of summer break. Though I have the grad project to finish up and would love to have done before leaving for summer camp on Saturday, I'm taking some time for me. Actually, more to spend with Daddy GOD. I truthfully have NOT spent the time with HIM that I should have over the past couple of years. Truthfully, I haven't fought for Joy either.....

So as I slept in this morning and then decided to do some reading before really getting up and starting the day (that would be starting the busyness of the day, since this is the ABSOLUTE best way I could think of starting a day to be honest!). I'm finishing up reading the book, "Walking with God" by John Eldredge, a book I have been reading for well over a year now.

John Eldrege has been walking with God through the seasons.... I LOVE that I FINALLY started spring this morning.... especially knowing that is most likely where my heart is finally at after a very very very long winter.

We are suppose to fight for Joy.... wow, it is ringing all around me this morning. And if I think back a week, and recall numerous moments, events in my life from my past I should be feeling heart broken and disappointed right now.... though all I have thought about and can think about over the past week, well don't get me wrong I did have a day full of tears, heart pain, and confusion... BUT, all I have thought and can think about at this moment is Fighting for Joy..... I have so much HOPE and JOY right now at this moment.... and the many other thoughts that have been going through my heart and head would sound absolutely crazy to anyone I know in my life if I shared them with them. They would be saying what are you thinking....

Because of ALL the thoughts that have been running through every part of my soul, I am trying to be still and silent with GOD.... that silent part is hard, especially for me on any given day, but when my heart and mind are running wild so to speak it seems even harder, BUT I REALLY want to know it is HIM I am hearing....

FIGHT FOR JOY..... I had to stop and write, but don't even know what part of what is going on in me to actually share at the moment, yet at the same time I want to go back and read the rest.... the very last few pages (which I did just do, so I'm done with the book... Yahoo, finally).

FIGHT FOR JOY.... here are the parts that I underlined for some reason or another in the Spring section of the book, pages 177-208.... FIGHT FOR JOY:

"To love winter, or to love anything or anybody, you must let go and give yourself over to it."

...The weather got me thinking about acceptance and surrender, which then led me to think about more significant, lingering, and long-standing disappointments in my life.... we sabotage a lot of God's intended joy simply by the way we approach life.... And so, whatever else might be the reasons for our disappointments, there is no question that God uses them to draw us to himself.... God knows the danger of ignoring our hearts, and so he reawakens desire.... More often than not this awakening of desire is an invitation from God to seek what we've given up as lost, an invitation to try again. ...Don't give up.... but what they point to, what is coming through them.... God used her to awaken a longing, to get to a long-buried part of my heart so that he could heal me. When desire is awakened, by whatever source, the thing to pray is, God what do you have for me?... But to send your heart into exile because of your longings have no hope of being met is also to exile your heart from the love of God. And he would have your whole heart. ...All because we won't sort out our internal issues for ourselves. ... How many precious things do we let go, give up, surrender because it seems that life is too busy, it's a hassle to fight through to make it happen, or we assume we know what's best or inevitable, and we don't even stop to ask God? ...We try to figure it out. It's not the same thing as walking with God. We simply don't see all that God sees. God says, "My thoughts are not your thoughts" (Isaiah 55:8). He knows what's ahead. He knows what we need. So ask him. I am asking, but the reception isn't superclear right now. I don't have a signal. So what I've done is write out the questions on a pad of paper, one at a time: ...But today, after a few moments, I hear him saying, Fight for it. ...it seemed counterintuitive, I didn't trust it. ...I realized I'm going to need to trust God on this. Smile. Isn't that the point- that we trust God enough to follow him? ...My life often feels like it makes no sense. ...I'm going to fight for joy. ...It's about my yieldedness to God, and it's about hope. I don't want to live a defensive life, constantly steeling myself against the future, wary to trust, wary to believe. I want to be open to all God has for me. I want to live the life he wants me to live. ...This is where it all gets lived out. In the moment. ...

After all, this is the opening page of a new book in my life, the next chapter with God. ...Looking down at the blank page, I quietly ask God in my heart, What needs to go here? You know what he said. My Love. So that is what I write down. That is all I write on that opening page. Two words. "My Love." It is more than enough. Whatever else gets written in this journal, whatever stories told, whatever prayers, all the processing of life, let it all come under this. Let it be a continuation of this. His love. I sit there and look at it- let it sink in. I am turning my heart toward his love. Letting it be true. Letting it be life to me. What else, Lord? Believe my love. Yes, I do. I believe your love. And something in me is shifting. I am coming to believe it more than I ever have. It is changing me. I feel less driven. Less compulsive. Less grasping. And less empty. I feel like I want to stay here. To live in his love.

Wow, is all I can say.... I'm feeling overwhelmed by HIS LOVE at the moment.... I'm feeling strong and confident in a way I NEVER ever have before. I do need to admit that I lost a little bit of my thought process in writing this due to a phone call I took, but it was a conversation with someone that has a lot to do with ALL the thoughts that have been going through my heart and head over the past week.... something that is the source of a smile on my face, no better yet in my heart. Something I can't really explain, but that is causing me to draw ever so closer to my loving father God. Something, no someone that is more than they know they are. Not sure if that makes sense, but hey... seems like lots right now going on in my head seems crazy. I do long and want that silence with God so I can really hear Him. I think sometimes our hopes and our past hurts become blockades to what HE really has for us.

But, right now at this moment.... I think of a dear friend who told me that the one thing they knew for sure about me was that I didn't do anything that I didn't believe I had heard from GOD, that I always did follow HIS guidance even if it seemed absolutely crazy to the world.... and even though a couple of things I thought I heard, did NOT turn out the way I thought.... well it, they are still amazing because though they caused me over the years to doubt and question my own heart, I can NOW look at them in this moment not as the specific thing I heard in my heart, but what they point to, what is coming through them.

As I FIGHT FOR JOY I'll end with: This much I know is true, That God blessed the broken road, That led me straight to.....