Joy

This weekend, I was blessed to attend a dinner party put on by our Women's Ministry at church.  It is called the Festival of Tables.  Mkay...I really hope I don't offend anyone, but I'm gonna be honest here and say that I wasn't really sure about this whole thing. The name alone sounded a little "old lady-ish".  In my head, I pictured some older women decorating tables with some gaudy Christmas stuff.  I was totally wrong -- and I'm so glad I was!  First of all, we got these cute little mint tins to take home.  Adorable!    

Each table represented has a hostess.  My friend, Ashly, hosted the table where I sat.  The hostess gets to choose how she wants to decorate.  Ashly has some friends who are missionaries to China and she plans to go on a mission trip next year, so her theme was China.  I loved her table decor.

I did a horrible job taking pictures - horrible!  But, here is a shot of the whole room.

You may be able to see some of the men dressed in white shirts and ties.  Those are the men from the church.  Husbands, spouses, sons, grandpas...they all came out to serve the women for an entire night.  It was awesome!  They did a fabulous job.

I tell you what, God knew I needed to be there on Saturday.  Our speaker for the evening did a great job and spoke on exactly what I needed to hear about.  Joy.  She was funny and had a really quirky sense of humor.  She spoke about having to get up every day and choose JOY.  Joy is not happiness.  It is being content in whatever the situation because you know Jesus.  She spoke about how on some days, choosing Joy was just hard.  She lost her 12 year old daughter to cancer and choosing Joy was not something she wanted to do.  But, because of JESUS' LOVE FOR US...because HE CHOSE TO LOVE US...she would choose Joy.  That is such a foreign concept in our society.  We want what we want, when we want it and we don't want to love God when things are hard.  We don't want to put God first in EVERY SINGLE SITUATION.  But, HE.DESERVES.OUR.BEST.  No matter what.  He loved so that we may know how to love.  And so that we may choose Joy.

So, in response, that is my goal.  To find my JOY in JESUS.  Every day.  Even when it is hard.  Even when life is not what I want it to be - I will seek JOY.