Pencil in Some Joy

11.13.17

Sometimes you get just plumb tired of life. Tired mentally from the drudgery and toil of demanding routine, tired emotionally from the struggle, tired physically from the pain and exhaustion. 

And there’s just no way around it {but through}. 

I used to think I could {& should} tell myself to suck it up and power through and be happy anyway. {Talk about unhealthy coping mechanisms}.

But I’m learning—between the hard work of dragging myself from bed on these life-tired days and the endless to-do list that’s never actually done—that purposefully injecting intentional joy into my day helps balance the difficulty of the “through” and energizes me to do more of the hard stuff in the end.

Today, I had the presence of mind to go beyond the mental exercise and actually write joy into my schedule. Today, after centering my tired soul with morning prayer, I felt compelled to make joy not just a nebulous task, but a visual goal. I started with something as simple as a pair of shoes—a little beauty that will literally make me smile and lift my heart in joy every time I look down.  

And interspersed with the tasks that make me want to crawl in a hole and hide, I’ve given myself a task that truly brings great joy {editing the family pictures I took for a dear friend!}, and a task that creates connection and brings someone else joy {playing a board game game with my son!}. 

It’s an important lesson to keep impressing upon my soul—that we must generously and continually serve Jesus in the temple of our own body and heart and mind if we intend to better serve others.

--> How will you intentionally schedule in joy today?