Chasing Joy

The new year is all about what we want to change, isn’t it?  It’s a time for taking stock and becoming aware of what’s lacking in our lives.

Coming off of a semester of reclaiming my Awesome (albeit a life-long endeavor to maintain), I was a little leery of looking too long for what’s missing.  Though, after rumination I came upon what I want:

Not to fill an empty space in my life with yet another program or activity or goal.  Instead, I want to strip away all of those and to run hard and fast after what’s truly meaningful.  I want Joy. 

Abounding, uncensored,

 riotous, alluring,

                unadulterated, transforming,

Joy.

Because my time, and yours dear one, is too fleeting upon this blue mot to fritter away a joyless existence.  Each moment holds such potential for it.  Even the ones so infused with pain they crush all but the glimmer of hope.  Because joy isn’t the hapless smile slapped on your face the moment the church’s threshold is breached.  It isn’t the giddy ecstasy bounding out of wedding vows.  It is the abiding, sustaining undercurrent of life, if in Christ we reside daily.  If through Christ we absorb the pure source of joy. 

So this year, I have resolved not to chase after the wind.  I will chase joy.  I will dwell in it.  I will bring it with me into the world that is in such need of it.  I will gladly share it with anyone I might.  This year, I will write about joy: how I find it, where it leads me, who it calls to me, and to whom I am called because of it.  I will write about what steals it, how to fight for it, from where it can be drawn.  And why it is so vitally important.  Granted, I will write all of this as: me.  I can give no perspective other than this, as it should be.  And I want to encourage you to consider these things as only you can.  Let me know what you learn along the way.  Join me, friend, in abiding in joy.      

This year, I purpose to seek joy.  I purpose to fight for joy.  I purpose to allow joy to embody me, especially when circumstances dictate otherwise.  In this endeavor, I purpose to be true to my emotions, because joy isn’t a fleeting feeling; it is a state of being. 

I pray this journey changes me.  That at the end of this year I can turn back and see a more joy-filled path carved from my current one.  I pray that joy abounds in and through me.

In 2012, I will Chase Joy.