We have the same reason for joy as they did way back then.

I pray I’m intentional in my choice to let Christmas be all about Jesus. Here’s the truth, I believe, the joy stealers don’t rest at Christmas, there’s no reprieve from those set on negativity and strife. And then there’s unexpected sadness that makes no sense and seems to happen more at Christmas. Or maybe in our seeking to be joyous, we’re thrown off by its unfair interruption.

I’m not sure. I only know that we each can choose joy and like someone told me yesterday, I was caught off guard, “your face seems happier.” And I had prayed earlier that God would put someone on my path, literally wrote this in my journal,

“God send someone to my path who needs to know about your grace.”

This person who told me she saw a difference in me, I said to her, smiling over her words, “I’m getting better at understanding God’s grace and it’s no longer a striving thing, I am not working so hard for something that requires nothing of me, God’s grace.”

My day started this way yesterday. How can I not proclaim the joy as I circled prayers today, some still praying and this one given an asterisk for answered?

I consider it joy.

You know that joy when a longing you’d gotten a little disheartened over slips in and comes true in a way unexpected?

That’s the joy and joys I’m keen on noticing now.

If it takes writing them down or slowing my morning to be certain I give them their due, my time and attention, I am more aware because of doing so.

I think of my grandma’s little hands, her practice of keeping her “memorandum” book and I look towards the jewels she meticulously pinned into bright ornaments, I see her joy in her art.

I see joy, find it here.

Most especially when it comes in a way surprising me, a way that speaks truth to our Father’s all-knowing.

Like an angel I suppose, saying hold out for it and hold on sure but tenderly to this hope, your joy is coming.

You shall bear the light of this truth, that when you believe what you can’t see, you will get to see it come true.

Bear light of it just like young Mary, a mother unprepared and untouched by man, bearing the Son of Man, light of the world.

Remember the time another Mary and her sister Martha chose to believe?

Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?”  John 11:40

I’ve not known joy quite so miraculous as the risen dead, still I’ve known the joy of Jesus coming through, on my behalf, the behalf of those I love.

Known the joy found in what we believe will be true.

Jennifer Dukes Lee shares her thoughts about how to “Prepare Him Room” and a story that is oh, so very relatable, the task of Christmas decor and how we should simply rest in the beauty of our homes, stamped and shaped by our hearts.

Visit here:

http://jenniferdukeslee.com/prepare-him-room/

Linking up with Kelli LaFram, at Quietly Through

http://quietlyreminded.com/2017/12/07/confess-sins-quietly-thursday-link-20/?ct=t(RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN)&mc_cid=68c27bf7bd&mc_eid=8fccf10d46