“...for the joy of the Lord is your strength.” Nehemiah 8:10
Happy anniversary to me!
This week I celebrate the one year anniversary of “The Joy I Choose”. To think it’s been a year, is honestly overwhelming. All that has happened in the last 365 days (to me personally, to my family and friends, not to mention what has happened in our country and in our world) is so staggering that I am without words… Well maybe that’s not exactly true...
When I started blogging, my motivation was to give myself something to do; a hobby.
In June of 2020, in the climate of a world-wide-pandemic, I was spinning my wheels. I needed something to focus my attention on. Blogging always intrigued me. So I figured I’d give it a try. Additionally, I have been told by many people that I “have a way with words” and that I am a “wordsmith”. That gave me some confidence in my craft. As a self-professed word-nerd, I knew I had a deep-well of vocabulary to access, not to mention that I always notice and seek out plot lines, even when there seemingly isn’t one... From this motivation and justification, my blog was born.
Weekly, I work diligently to create a piece worth the four-to-six minutes my reader invests in my offering. Incidentally, over the past year, my blogging style has changed. I used to write a post days (if not weeks) in advance, going over it with a fine-tooth-proverbial-comb, fixing and re-tooling sentences, context and grammar. A year later, I often sit down on Tuesday night (as I am right now) and bang out my post, scheduling publication the next morning at 5:45 am. Each post could probably use more TLC and finesse. I find errors that I correct (or don’t) after it’s initial publication... Oh, well.
Blogging has become less an exercise in perfection and more one of habit… ritual.
There have been posts that I have received overwhelming response to (“Little Victories” and “Sunday School”) and posts that were virtually ignored (“Talk Less, Smile More”). The popularity, or lack of it, doesn't affect me one way or another. I am honestly posting for myself as much as my audience. My commitment to writing and posting each week was a goal I set, and achieved, for myself.
It has been a fun and fulfilling adventure from the perspective of a writer.
Another interesting aspect I have seen play out with my blog is that of the spiritual bent. I don’t usually (but sometimes) set out to make my posts spiritual (“Bottles”). I will have an idea pop into my head that seems interesting (“The Science of Beauty”) or thought provoking (“Who’s to Say”) or touching (“Tired”) and I begin to create the narrative (“Three Women in Heaven”).
Somewhere, though, in the bustle of words, God tends to sneak in. He does it so subtly, I don't even notice at first (“Dry Bones”). Words and sentences begin to stitch an outline of his truth within my story, be that an event from my childhood (“The Lamp”) or an old fable I remembered (“Too High a Price”) or a tribute to a friend (“The Boy Next Door”). God’s story, like the hem of a garment, ties together the whats, whys and hows of the events I present on this page. More often than not, God’s glory shines a light on something unexpected (“Dog Days”).
This "God intervention" in the stories of my life, is why I have named my blog “The Joy I Choose”.
I choose to find joy in the ordinary; the mundane. God is there. God is in the workings of a baseball game (“A Spectacular Spectacle for the Senses”). He is in glorious red-stone hills (“Where God Met Me or The Other Way Around”) and swinging under a filbert tree (“The Old Filbert Tree”).
God reaches out to us through people, places and events… And a lot of times we miss him.
We miss him in the excitement of a roller coaster (“The Roller Coaster”) or the comfort of a paperback novel (“Bookworm”). We miss him in the wagging tail of a puppy (“The Puppy”) or the whinny of a horse (“Remnant”). We miss God but he finds us… And he patiently waits for us to look up from our distractions, our worries, our fears to find him rejoicing over us. His joy is our strength. It’s easy to get it turned around. It's easy to be the one wanting, expecting, requiring joy, but it actually belongs to the Lord.
And he loves us with such overwhelming grace and mercy that his joy becomes our strength.
What an awesome God we serve. What a privilege it is to seek him with our hearts, our actions and our words; my words. Thank you for coming along on this journey with me over the past year. It has been an absolute honor.
Comments