Choose JOY!

Last Sunday our church sermon really hit home for me.  (You can find links to watch or listen to it here.)  It's something I think we all know but could use a reminder from time to time.  Each and every day we have to decide how we are going to live our life - Are we going to be bitter?  Are we going to be angry?  Or are we going to choose joy for our day?  For our life? 

I've pretty much always been a glass half-full kinda gal myself.  But just like anyone else, I have my days.  As a single parent, it doesn't take much for me sometimes to feel sorry for myself.  In fact, I feel like last week was one of those weeks...feeling a little too stressed and a little too alone to manage everything that was on my plate.  I know I'm not alone.  Everyone gets overwhelmed at times.  But I think it's different if you're single and even more so if you're also a parent.  When you've got a little person to look after, you don't have time to wallow.  We have to wake up and glue a smile on our face because we've got someone that's relying on us.  And that, my friends, is challenging! 

In the words of best-selling author Angela Thomas in the introduction to her book, My Single Mom Life: Stories and Practical Lessons for your Journey, "All the other families seemed to be a man and a woman with some kids.  Whole families...Never mind what kind of families they are in private; the families with a man in their pew look put together, and we are so obviously single.  Many days the ache of that unfair comparison won't seem to go away.  And being a single-mom family can make us feel that we're relegated to live a second-class life.  Crippled.  Limping.  Just doing the best we can with the scraps that remain.  Many times I feel the ache, but refuse to live like a crippled woman.  I am a single mom.  My children and I have been through it.  But we've also been blessed beyond reason.  I am choosing to live in the blessing."



image via http://office.microsoft.com/

In the early stages of my pregnancy, I will admit - I was no happy camper.  I was angry, disappointed, sad...basically every negative emotion you can name, I had it.  But my story changed when I began to accept my circumstances.  I didn't realize it at the time but looking back, when my journey of acceptance began, I made a choice.  I chose joy.  What will you choose today?