Taking Joy

There is a blog I read regularly that I both love and hate.  It's written by a famous homeschooling mother named Sally Clarkson, who has written stacks of books about homeschooling and the vocation of motherhood.  I love Sally, I really do, but sometimes reading about her life brings me down because she has set the bar so very, very high...and frankly I just feel too darn short. Although reading her blog sometimes makes me feel like a failure, most of the time it truly encourages me and inspires me to be the woman God wants me to be.  I'm slowly learning that I don't have to be Sally.  I don't need to be perfect or have perfect kids.  I just need a perfect Savior who is full of love and mercy when I fall short.

Sally's blog is called "I Take Joy", and I've always found that title to be both bold and intriguing.  I've often heard the phrase that we must "choose joy" because it is a feeling that doesn't always come naturally.  But the concept of "taking joy" seems to step it up a notch, and this week I really felt like adopting that phrase as my new motto.

Joy was not a natural feeling for me this week; in fact, I felt pretty much the opposite.  To quote my favorite protagonist, Bilbo Baggins, I felt "thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread." Nothing major happened to bring me down, just all the little things that add up...  Lack of sleep, my husband going on a work trip, the refrigerator breaking the day he left, my boys bickering, anxiety about getting pregnant again now that my cycle has already returned, annoyance at my son's football schedule and his drill-Sergent coach, little irritations with my spouse, countless insecurities with myself...the list could go on forever. 

Then it hit me...  Satan is stealing my joy and I need to take it back!  Satan is the father of lies and does such a successful job filling my mind with worries and doubts and irritations which steal the joy God wants me to have.  Quite frankly, I think Satan likes picking on me because I'm such an easy target.  He knows my weaknesses well; he knows it doesn't take much to send me into a tailspin of stress or despair. But deep down I know that no matter what my circumstances (even when given a cross big or small), I can still have joy, but I must be deliberate about it.  Satan is very deliberately trying to steal my joy and my salvation every second of the day, so I need to be just as deliberate about taking the joy back into my heart.  How do I do this?

Well, when my refrigerator breaks, I take joy by detaching myself from how inconvenient it might be or how much money it might cost, and I have fun eating out with the boys until the new fridge arrives.

When I'm feeling totally overwhelmed with 5 kids and 5,000 things I need to get done, I take joy by going for a rosary walk and placing it all in the Blessed Mother's hands.

When my husband says the wrong thing, I take joy by remembering all the reasons I fell in love with him 13 years ago and all the amazing things he does for our family now, and I choose to do something loving for him whether I feel like it or not.

When I'm bitter that I can't get things done or have some "me time", I take joy by playing Candyland for the 10th time, or by listening to my school boys tell me about their day, and I watch their little faces light up the room because I focused on them and not myself.

When my baby wakes me up 5 times a night, I take joy in holding his sweet little body in my arms, knowing that this snuggle-time will be gone all too soon, and being thankful for the extra prayer time that is almost impossible to find during the day.

The list could go on forever if I remember to take the joy in each moment, rather than allowing Satan to snatch it away.