Living in Joy

Christmas music makes me happy. No matter what the day or week or month brings, if I put in a Christmas cd and dance around the house, I immediately feel better. Well, dancing is not really required, but it does help.

Sometimes I wonder why life has been so easy for me. I read and hear and listen and watch people tell about the tragedies they experience, the hardships they face, the struggle with marriages or children or money, and my heart breaks for them, yet I can’t help but think, why haven’t I walked that path, why has my life been so easy? I guess I’ve always compared my life to other people’s lives, and their problems always seem so much bigger than mine.

Some days I feel guilty for living this life, guilty that life is not harder for me. That to be truly Christian is to struggle through life, to bear the burdens of life, and to take on more when we don’t feel weighed down enough.

How foolish am I? I don’t think Christ delights in our suffering. He doesn’t delight in the burdens we carry around. In Christ, we are free, truly free, free to lay down those burdens, even free to live a life of fullness and abundance.

I’m not saying it’s easy to lay these burdens down, especially when you are in the midst of trials and suffering and blow after blow. No, I think those are the times when Christ helps us put one foot in front of the other, when he helps us get out of bed in the morning or afternoon or evening.

But when we’re not in the midst of trials, there is joy in letting go of the little burdens and delighting in the abundance that’s around us. I’m not talking about worldly abundance, wealth or fame or security or anything else, but heavenly abundance, the type of abundance that only comes from being made into a new creation in Christ, the old has gone, the new has come (2 Cor. 5:17). Seeing things with new eyes, even when life takes an unexpected turn, or you find yourself in uncharted waters.

In my own small way, I’ve faced hardships, I’ve faced uncertainties, and some days I’m really good at relinquishing those fears, other days I sit inside the hole I’ve created in myself and pout. But when I really think about my life, when I take a good, long look at it, I realize that my life is beyond what I could have ever dreamed up or imagined. I realize I’ve done more, seen more, experienced more than I ever believed was possible. And I realize how very fortunate I am.

Fortunate to have married a man after God’s own heart, to be a military spouse on a huge mission field with so many opportunities to share the love of God to a hopeless and dying world, to get to travel and live in exotic and foreign locations, to meet new people, to experience new cultures, to seek God’s direction in my life, and to depend fully on Him for my next step.

Some days it’s hard, some days I feel out of place, some days I struggle with my own insecurities. But on those days, I force myself to stop, to listen to Christmas music, and remind myself of what I have, where I’m at, and whose I am. Then I realize I’m pretty stinken lucky.

Maybe the hardships will come, maybe the rough days are ahead, but when that time does come, I hope I’ll be able to look back and cling to the God that has brought me here and know He will never leave me, nor forsake me.