Choosing Joy in Challenging Times

When you tell people that your word for the year is "Joy", you may receive some similar reactions. Some people then expect you to don pink glasses, dance, twirl, and sing like Glinda from "The Wizard of Oz" and her little Munchkins, "Fa la la la la, la la la, la la la."

Some people may roll their eyes and scoff at your naivete'. "Surely you don't think it is possible to be happy all the time?" Some people may impose their negative circumstance upon you. "Jolly good for you, you aren't facing *insert challenge* like I am." And, some people will have a response of life-giving proportion. Perhaps they have already found joy themselves. They will smile, affirm your choice, perhaps give you a motivational post on your facebook page or tag you in an Instagram photo.

The verse that first prompted me to consider "Joy" for the year spoke of considering joy.

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. James 1:2-4 (NIV)

Just yesterday, I had an amazing dream. I was bold, courageous, not afraid to fight and defend on behalf of others! Spiritually in the dream, I was battling the dark shadow people and completely confident that the Lord was with me! I awoke charged up, ready to go, saw some amazing things, heard amazing praises, it was a high!
Last night I don't remember dreaming. I don't know why I awoke at 3:30am, nor why I stayed awake until 4:30am.

Today, joy was a choice. I had a challenge in the afternoon, one I knew was coming, but was not looking forward to. It was necessary, it would be good for me, good for the other person directly involved, but still, it would be difficult, painful, and would be draining emotionally, mentally, physically, socially and spiritually.
I knew my situation needed to progress. It was time. We had to face the giant, knowing we could defeat it. 
Still, joy was not my first thought today.
Did I want to face this challenge?
No.
I wanted the Jonah option. Next ticket to Tarsus, please!

Now that it's done, progress has been made, I am trying to focus on the joy that is mine to have. Something happened. We had breakthrough. This has been a process over four years in the making. Last year, I chose "Trust". I wanted to trust God fully. Somehow, in all the turmoil that came, the brokenness that had to happen, He helped me lose that trust in myself and find my trust in Him.

I anticipate that this year is going to bring harder challenges, but it's because I'm deeply rooted in Him (Colossians 2:7) and it will only bring us closer together. 

https://dwellingintheword.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/colossians2_7-roots.png

Truly, is that not joy? That my heart would be closer to my God, and my journey home would be that much closer to its blessed reunion?! I want to be refined, matured, to let go of the need for affirmation and to instead be full of rejoicing in hearts reached for Him. For His kingdom to advance, we must be prepared to let Him work in us and through us. That takes a lot, but He promises we will not lack anything when perseverance has finished its work!

I encourage you to draw close to Him. He is speaking to me through the prophets this year. Isaiah, Joel, Habbakuk, Zephaniah, Ezekiel, all their voices are being brought to life again! His Word was in the beginning and is still alive and speaking.
Choose to find the joy. It is there if you are looking for it. Joy is a reward. A reminder that we are being used for His glory, and the Holiness of God passing through us refines us in the passing!

May His praises be ever on my lips. (Psalm 34:1)
~Tammy

http://tammysincerity.blogspot.com

End of the Year and what Trust has brought about...

I cannot help but sit in reflection these last few days and wonder at how God could do so much in such a short time.

When choosing the word "trust" for my oneword365, I had no idea how much writing I would get to do. Most of it, truly, was not on my personal blog, and I didn't really want to link those "click here to read more" posts if I could avoid it. There was a lot going on in my head, heart, and in my life.

2014 was a year where God really had some breaking to do. Breaking down my own strength, my own abilities, until I was a broken mess. And then? Then the beauty could come from the ashes!
A verse I've memorized this fall is Ephesians 6:10. "Finally, be strong in the Lord, and in His mighty power."

I was honored to be a member of the BraveGirl Community. I frequently submitted my writing there this year. If you haven't yet visited, it's been a blessing to be with those amazing women!

There have been some major control issues I've had to work through. Namely, the fact that I am not in control of my children, any more than my own parents are in control of me. All of us have individual personalities and free will, and the job of a parent is to guide their children to a self-controlled life. We provide consequences (both positive and negative) for their actions, but they must make choices every day. If we choose for them too often, they become dependent on us.

That being said, when my child is out of control, it's embarrassing, shameful, and I feel the judgment of many around me (especially non-parents, or people who don't remember any disobedient veins in their own children).

This year brought great pain in the form of lives taken. Some were old lives, well-lived, and we were thankful for their release, others were a shock and I still grieve.

This year brought great depth in my relationship with God. In September, I began to teach chapel to our preschool, kindergarten, and elementary students at our private school. I had the idea to have a jungle theme, and then relate the armor of God to them in jungle format.

Wow. All the ideas from God to explain and simplify caused new understanding in my own life. Suddenly, the Bible has opened up in new ways that I have never known before! Verses have flooded my news feed on Facebook thanks to YouVersion, and many have been timely. Also, speakers like Lysa Terkeurst and Christine Caine and musician Bekah Shae have been sharing verses that have edified me.
I've been able to commit verses to memory. They've been short and sweet and the references uncomplicated. Passages have opened up like never before.

I was able to attend a conference in Portland, "Women of Faith", which helped me to lose a burden of heaviness and apathy and come back with new vigor. The theme was "from survival to revival".
Very fitting for what is to come.

So, as I close this chapter of oneword365 and approach my next year, my word has been easier to choose. That word is Joy. I am going to choose Joy in every circumstance.

Christine Caine's book, "Unstoppable" has been a motivator in this word choice. The next year brings me great hope and anticipation, but I know that in some ways, I am anticipating a much more challenging year than this year was. The challenges will be difficult, but liveable, and will prepare me for the next step in this life, this journey.
We often ask our girls, "are you bringing joy to your sisters?" "to others?"
In my daily life, I will be conscious of trying to bring joy to those around me.
And, I must consider it joy whenever I face trials of many kinds. (James 1:2-4)
This is going to bring me to maturity.

So much more to write, but I will save it for my next blog. :)
Thanks for joining me this year!
~Tammy

Month Eleven, still Trusting

Honestly, though I have been journeying faithfully this year, trying to keep up a separate blog has been more work than I could commit to.
You can read the following post which has everything to do with trust and my journey this year down below at tammysincerity. :)

http://tammysincerity.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-eleventh-houror-month.html

Disappointment

Today wasn't the best day I've ever had.
It wasn't the worst day I've ever had, either.
I have a lot to be thankful for, really, but today was a two of ten on the happy scale. It was just a blue day.
Are there physical and natural and environmental factors at work? I am certain there are because if not, I'm going to be a very unpleasant person to be around if I continue to be this irritable on a daily basis.

By cjohnson7 from Rochester, Minnesota (Flickr) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Still, there is a responsibility at some point that you have to take over your behavior. Regardless of circumstance, you are not allowed to put your misery upon others, however justified you feel.


This has been a week of let-downs. I promise not to be an Eeyore for the entire post, so hang in there. I just need to help you know how far down I had to go before I acknowledged the need to leave the "downs". It puts the "ups" in perspective.

Sometimes disappointments happen. And it's not the fault of anyone. For my four year old, it's an unacceptable truth that she simply cannot cope with. For two and a half years we've been walking through unmet expectations and how to deal with them. The road has become a lot smoother after all this work, but there are some serious potholes in the road and we don't often see them in time to avoid them.

Don't we all struggle with unmet expectations, though? You get your hopes up, you put your hope in that upcoming event or situation or financial promise, and when or if your expectation is not met (either in part or in whole), there is an emotional mess that must be dealt with!

Nobody really likes messes, but some of us handle them with less grace than others. I have mess aversion so my poor four year old is trying to learn to cope from a mom that is still learning to cope.

Yes, that sweet circled face is my own. I would have captioned the photo "It's MY camera" at the time.

When the disappointment occurs, we want an out. Somebody to blame would make me feel better. If I could direct all my frustration at an object or a person, and I could expel it, certainly I'd feel better, right?
Wrong.
When we take that mess and put it on anybody else except the one who already took all the messes and washed them clean with His blood, the mess spreads and leaves stains. Instead of ridding ourselves of the ugly, we've spread the ugliness and now it's on both of us.
Sometimes we feel so yucky after an outburst that was unfairly directed as a way of coping. I was there this morning for a time. Impatience seems to breed impatience in our home. (Remember that the mom is still learning?)
Though today has been difficult and I've felt down and irritable all day, longing for family (who live between 100 to 400 miles away at the closest), friends (who I missed seeing this week on three different days due to multiple factors), or even another adult instead of my adorable children, the fact remains that I am the adult. I have to choose.

I'll say it again. It is a choice.

I get to choose my attitude. Nobody else can force me to have a good or even a great attitude. They might really hope I'll have one, but I have to choose it.

Here are some thoughts from Ephesians 4:22-24 (NIV)
You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires;  to be made new in the attitude of your minds;  and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

It's work, it's hard, and when you're in the middle of your mess, sometimes you just don't feel like it.
I think this is what's beautiful about God, about His Holy Spirit in our hearts! In spite of our grumpy selves, He reaches out in love and welcomes us back home. Our stinky pig-pen selves returning, covered in filth like the Prodigal Son, and still He races to hold us!

So, once embraced in His arms, His love, eyes turned toward the Creator of all, the disappointments gradually fade. Perspective can help the pain seem less sharp and eventually fade away.

Have you been dealing with disappointment lately?
Has the dark, dreary winter been adding to the difficulty of dealing with things on your own?
(Have you understood why it's so hard if you're trying from your own strength like I do?)

Beautiful Feet

If you have kept up with me, this is my one word 365 blog. I didn't really want to take on the responsibility of another blog, and this January I became a part of The Brave Girl Community.

So, I will actually just post excerpts here from time to time of the brave girl posts I'm writing and then list a link for you to jump over and read the rest. :)

Trust is definitely being developed within me and the Holy Spirit is becoming a more and more familiar strength and friend.

Here's the post in its entirety: http://bravegirlcommunity.com/2014/08/21/beautiful-are-the-feet/ ‎

And, if you want to read a piece before committing to another link, here you go:

I have two very good feet. I was born with all ten toes. I have been able to walk without problems for the duration of my 30 plus years here on Earth.
So why don't I like my feet?
My toes are a mix of my Dad's toes and my Mom's toes. I could point out to you that my first large toe and last two toes are all the same as his, but that my second and third are exact copies of my mother's toes.
I don't really dislike my toes, but they do make it difficult to purchase shoes that are not "open-toed" as their lengths are not uniform or standard for today's fashion.
And this, perhaps is where the dislike begins. Today's fashion. Marketing professionals are great at what they do. They find feet that they deem "flawless", "perfect", "the standard of beauty", and then they photograph them. If the photograph isn't just right, they will alter it to "put their best foot forward."
(sorry, I couldn't resist)
Along with the perfect toenails, which are not flat to the foot but have a slight roundness to the base, the toes are all lined up just like rows in a neatly planted garden. Not one is crooked, not one is too long compared to its sister. These toes often have a nice manicure and perhaps a coat of lovely lacquer as well.

In junior high I began to have communal shower/locker room exposure. My feet also were exposed to that environment and I began to have imperfections on my skin. My perfect feet now had times of peeling which were treated and cured until it came back.
By high school I began to dislike my feet even more. Instead of pretty, smooth skin that resembled my palms, I had rough white layers on the balls of my feet and on the outsides. I was very active, and that is a natural result of all the time spent on my feet, hiking, playing sand volleyball, indoor volleyball, working fast food, etc.
As an adult I visited a podiatrist, who wasn't concerned when he saw my feet, just told me to sand them. "You can even use a dremel on them."
Within the last few years, I've jammed both my big toes and damaged the nail beds and I've kind of given up hope that I'll ever even have toenails that cover my entire toe again.
When I met my now-husband, and we were dating, he one time wanted to give me a foot rub with some lotion. I resisted. I could not understand why he would want to touch my feet. I would often say, "God put my feet as far away from my eyes as possible as He knew it was the body part I liked the least."
That's pretty cruel to say. And, I believe it's disrespectful to myself AND to the one who made me!

No longer friendless

Here's an excerpt from my latest post of what God has been teaching me.
You can read the full article at: http://bravegirlcommunity.com//2014/08/12/friendless-no-more/

"I remember still the day they came by when our second born was about to have a birthday. They were going to move out of town for a new job, and he had gone ahead of her and the children. We were still supposed to have a month together, but just like that, she was leaving town! It felt like a piece of me left town with her. I was so pained and depressed. How often do you have a friend that is perfect for you whose children are so close in age to your own? I had other friends whose kids were off-set by a year with my own or whose youngest matched the age of my oldest. They played together, but it wasn’t easy for me with the moms as we weren’t exactly at the same points in life.
I’ve had some great friendships since then, but it seems to be a pattern for me. I’ll get really close to a friend, and then, right when I’m appreciating the depth of the friendship and the trust we’ve built, she has to move away...
Does this mean I should not invest ever again in a deep relationship? Though my short-term dark-mood pity-party self might want to say “yes,” Jesus is reminding me of something else.
I’m not the only person to want or need a deep friendship. His Holy Spirit is going to meet my deepest needs, but He knows I need fellowship.

“And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.“ (Hebrews 10:24-25 NIV)

Trusting A Stranger

Today while in my kitchen, I looked out the window and noticed our mammoth cat, Bubba. He was on top of the netting on our strawberry plants. I'm not kidding, he weighs over 18 pounds and is only 2 years old. He looks like a gray lynx (he's part Mainecoon).

I was also hearing a lot of noise from neighborhood birds, which is uncommon in the afternoon. They prefer late evening or early morning.

Once I got out there, I realized that there was a robin stuck in the netting and Bubba was very interested in this hard-to-get "treat".

An American robin. Mine looked very much like this one.

At first, I tried to assess whether the bird was actually stuck or just trapped under the netting. I was trying to avoid touching it as I knew it was scared and I didn't want to get pecked. It was lying so still I thought perhaps it was playing dead. It then panicked and tried to escape, but I realized it was in pain from Bubba stepping on the netting and trying to get underneath.

I shooed him away and placed one hand on the bird, speaking in a soothing tone and shushing it much like I did for my children when they were babies. To my amazement, it became completely calm. I held it gently but firmly to the ground while I pulled the netting away from its wings and feet, but it was soon evident that this determined bird had put its head completely through the mesh square and I'd need to cut it free.

I asked one of my three girls to go inside and fetch me the kitchen scissors. Once she came out, I clipped the netting until it was free, but before I could actually remove the square from its head, it flew away from me. I was trying to pull the tiny square off its neck rather than cutting so close, but the bird could sense the net was no longer holding on. First it flew to our roof, and sat for a while just looking at us. It then turned and flew up high into our neighbor's maple tree.

There is something about making eye contact with a wild animal. And something truly amazing about getting to touch an animal that is not tame, but that is at peace with you. I don't recommend going out and trying to pet a cougar or anything, but this bird could sense that I was trying to help it and it was completely calm while I worked on freeing it.

My biggest concern was that Bubba had injured the bird, but based on its quick flight, I don't think the bird lost anything besides some calm and some downy undercoat feathers. I secured the netting better, and we've harvested some of those bright red berries, since clearly, they were ripe.

Genesis speaks of Adam and the animals in Eden. Revelation speaks of a new heaven and earth. I believe that there will be a trust between humans and animals in that new earth, and today, I had a glimpse of it.

It's a moment I don't think I'll forget.

~Tammy

This is Bubba. If I were a robin, I'd be scared too.