My Joy

Five minute Friday at GypsyMama.  This week in honor of a women I've never met in the flesh but who has spurred me and others on.  To GitzenGirl.

JOY!

I ran.  No shoes.  Hands still flecked with paint.  Down the granite stairs, trying not to slide in socks.

I stood jumping up and down in front of an office door.  I had to tell someone!

"I got the job!  I'm going to Korea!"

While in that moment, I was elated beyond words, it wasn't that moment that overwhelmed me.  It was all the moments of pain in the previous 10 months, when this seemed like an impossibility for multiple reasons.   Money, family support, timing, health, paperwork.  Each one, God stayed steady and I kept walking forward.  Tears that streamed my face seemed such a distance memory.

I chose to trust.  I chose to believe.  I chose joy.

Whether I had ever made it here or not, I knew the joy that went beyond my circumstances or understanding. Even, if I was still deeper in debt and without a job, accused, out of sync, or barely able to walk:

There is always joy.

It was God.  My joy.  The joy that never left or faded.  Constant.  Faithful.