Joy Stealer

This month our theme on EEE is joy. Each post has something to do with joy—directly or indirectly. As I was contemplating my post for today, I had a rough time even touching the subject. Instead, I feel the need to be honest.

I don’t feel joyful today.

Yes, I’m human. As much as I have to be joyful for—from my salvation to my beautiful family—there are still days that I get down. Days that I lose sight of the important blessings and focus on the day-to-day that will soon pass. Sometimes, I just can’t help it.

And today is one of those days.

You’ve been with me since I started this move to Hawaii. The whole flight thing was rough, then we have all the problems getting housing and end up in a hotel for 60 days. We (my husband and I) kept thinking: all we need to do is get into our home and things will calm down. We can get into a routine, the kids will thrive…everything would be better.

We didn’t even contemplate that the movers (on one side or the other) broke a bunch of stuff or that the washer wouldn’t work, or that the house would have ants and roaches (oh, let me tell you how furious we were, the community center is going to get an earfull!). To add to the frustration, Connor, my husband, and I are all sick. Unpacking + illness = lots of tension.

Now, I’m not complaining. Okay, maybe a little bit---but my point is that I’ve reached my day. The day I can’t find it in my heart to look at everything with optimistic, positive thoughts, the day when the last thing on my mind is praising the Lord—in fact, I’d rather have a few words with Him.

What do we do on days like this? How do we overcome these feelings?

Obviously, I’m not an expert as I suffer from the ailment as well. However I would like to offer a few comments.

First of all, in John 10:10 Jesus says, “The thief comes to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to full.” Satan will steal our joy if we let him. In order to be a threat to him, we have to be effective, and he has no problem rendering us ineffective if we let him. For us believers, we have to be prayed up and in close connection with God through the Holy Spirit so we can be aware of Satan’s attacks.

Second, do something for someone else. You hear this all the time. When we think of someone else, the focus is not on us and our problems, and often puts our problems into perspective. For instance, we had the tsunami scare here last week (you read about it in the last post), but Hawaii fared pretty well. Other places—not so much. Japan’s death toll is over 10,000, and there are millions of people without food, water, and several thousands without shelter. My problems are miniscule compared to that.

We’ve all heard the expression “What don’t kill you, makes you stronger”, as well as the Christian version “God won’t give you more than you can handle”. Both are relevant. It’s when we zero in on the here and now that we lose our joy. Here and now, life may be rough. Here and now, things may seem out of hand. Here and now, we may want to go stick our head in the sand like an ostrich. But here and now is a mere moment in the scheme of things. Just like a valley is formed between mountains, so we will rise out of our circumstances with time.

Even now, writing this blog post is giving me renewed hope and strength. Remembering to whom I belong and that this is all temporary is feeding my joy. I’m not quite out of my slump, yet…but I’m getting there.

How do you fight these days?