Choose Joy

We all have hard things.  Maybe it’s a diagnosis, like type 1 diabetes, or celiac, or cancer.  Maybe it’s a difficult family situation.  Maybe you’re in a season of financial stress.  Maybe you’ve lost someone and you don’t know how to keep going without them.  Maybe you’re lonely, sad, exhausted, frustrated.  Maybe, right in this particular moment, your hard thing is the milk spilled all over the floor, or the mountain of laundry you can’t find time to get to, or the children that don’t seem to ever stop fussing.  We all have hard things.

In fact, the Bible is very clear about this.  “In this world you will have trouble.” (John 16:33)  You WILL.  It doesn’t say that you MIGHT have trouble.  You will.

So what do we do with that trouble?  I’ll tell you what I tend to do.  My first reaction to trouble/hardship/stress/suffering is this: complain, worry, allow my situation to overwhelm me.  But for nearly four and a half years now, I have watched my young daughter do hard things, really hard things, all day every day.  She doesn’t have a choice.  Her hard thing is type 1 diabetes, and she has to do it; it’s a life and death situation if she doesn’t.  But while she never had a choice in whether or not she wanted to live with a chronic illness, she does have a choice in how she reacts to this very hard thing.  She can choose to be sad and overwhelmed and angry all the time.  Or she can choose to rise above the hard thing and choose joy instead.

Choosing joy does NOT mean that we are ignoring the fact that things are hard.  No.  Loss is hard.  Financial stress is hard.  Broken family relationships are hard.  Type 1 diabetes is hard.  But choosing joy DOES mean that we will choose to rise above, choose to find the good, choose have faith in a bigger story.

Mackenna is strong, brave, resilient.  I watch her poke her fingers all throughout every day.  I see her body tense up in anticipation of the pain right before we insert a new pump or sensor site.  I see the frustration when she knows she needs to stop playing to check her blood sugar.  These are hard things for a kiddo to deal with day in and day out.  It’s a lot of responsibility, too much responsibility.  And I have to say that almost all the time she does these things without complaining or grumbling.  Almost.  There are times when it’s too much for her and it just isn’t fair and she doesn’t want to do it anymore.  Sometimes she feels the hard more.  Sometimes the hard breaks her a little bit and she gets angry.  Sometimes she cries.  But once she’s done feeling the weight of it in that moment, I can see her choosing joy instead.  She’ll take a deep breath.  She’ll calm her voice.  And she’ll do what she needs to do.  It’s incredibly inspiring to do life with someone who’s been handed more hard things in her 9 years than I have been handed in all of my 37, and to see her choose joy day in and day out when it would be so easy not to.

“Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.” (John 16:22)

Every year we participate in the JDRF One Walk, and raise money to help fund a cure for type 1 diabetes.  Over the past four years our team, Mackenna’s Joy, has raised over $30,000!  This year we are trying a new fundraiser.  We designed a t-shirt with a message that Mackenna lives out on a daily basis: choose joy!  All (100%) of the proceeds from these shirts will go to our fundraising effort for the 2018 JDRF One Walk.  We’d be so honored if you would join us in choosing joy…wear it to inspire others, wear it on your hardest days, gift it to someone who embodies its message.  Click on the link for ordering information (deadline is December 4th)!

www.etsy.com/shop/thejoybeforeme