Choose Joy???

I just listened to a sermon based on the text in James 1 which says, "Consider it all joy , my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance."

This is not the time in my life when choosing joy is an easy task. I think it sounds almost impossible. It is 1:00 am as I type this entry. I do so because this command weighs heavy on my heart. I have had to make some very serious and painful decisions in my day, but none as painful and difficult as the one I made today. I really wished for life to be different. I really wanted my children to grow up with a strong relationship with the Lord. However, life can take turns we are not always ready to take nor are we ready to handle them on our own strength.

Choosing joy in the midst of a storm is really the best option we have. After all, the verse doesn't assure us of an easy life, full of happiness with an occasional bad day here and there. No, it guarantees that we will have trials, hardships, disappointments. This is the reality of the life we live in a sinful fallen world. I have experienced hardship and suffering this past year in ways that I would absolutely never have chosen to go through. Sometimes I find myself asking God for a reason I have to wait so long for an answer to this particular prayer to be answered. Over and over again I am reminded that God answers every prayer, sometimes it is just not the way we thought.

Tonight I cried out to Jesus to protect my son, to heal his heart, to remind him of the relationship that Jesus is waiting to have with him. Crying out to Jesus is sometimes the only thing I can do, and believe me, he has heard me begging and pleading many times for healing and help for him.

In the cries, I am reminded to keep my eyes on the One who made the sun, moon, and stars and every living creature. Who knows the very number of hairs on my head and sees a tiny sparrow fall to the ground. I pray that memories of lessons learned about God's faithfulness and lovingkindness will be present in the mind of my child. To remember that we gave him back in dedication to the Lord and that he remains and forever will be in the care of the Creator of the universe.

Joy, choose it, knowing that in Christ all things are possible. Even the seemingly impossible situations that we find ourselves in.