Joy v Stress? (i'll take joy)

As Christmas quickly approaches (only four more days!!), I am reminded of how stressful the holiday season can be for many people. As I went to finish up some Christmas shopping with my momma and sister today, I was not all that surprised at the crowded and busy aisles and full parking lots.

I find gift-giving a fabulously fun way to show others we care, and I think it is important for us to remember that gift-giving should be something that brings both us and the recipient joy. And I feel that for many people shopping for gifts has become more of a necessity and a burden than a thoughtful way to show someone you love them.

Consider the wise men, bringing baby Jesus gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. For some reason I don't think those wise men spent their journey to Bethlehem complaining about how much those gifts cost or how early they had to get to the store to buy them or how long they waited in line. Instead they were probably bursting with anticipation to present their gifts. Granted, the recipient of their gifts was fully deserving of the excitement and joy of their giving. But then shouldn't we be joyful in our giving to our families and friends as well? Jesus' birth is the reason for all of the joy, excitement, and love that makes the Christmas season beautiful and wondrous. And in celebration of his coming, isn't it only right that we be joyful and full of anticipation in all that we do?

So as we are out shopping for presents, wrapping that abundance of gifts, preparing Christmas dinner for a huge family, or just trying to clean up the house a bit, it is of the utmost importance that we remember who this holiday is named for : Christ. Our Savior. Our Wonderful Counselor. Our Great Redeemer. Emmanuel. The Messiah. And as we do all of these so-called holiday chores, I pray that we will do them with joy and to glorify the name of our God.

The Christmas season should not be stressful time of year. It should be completely the opposite! Christmas is a time to rejoice and sing praise; a time to share our love with those in need; a time to make happy memories with family and friends. As Christians, it is necessary for us to set that example and to be the ones who are NOT ONLY excited about catching a sale, receiving lots of expensive gifts, or eating lots of sweets. We have to be the ones who are ALSO and EVEN MORE excited about the birth of Christ our Savior!

So how can we do this? BE JOYFUL! And share that joy with everyone you meet! So don't be stressed or anxious! You have every reason to be full of happiness and calmness this Christmas because Jesus was born for YOU!!


Let's give the gift of our love this year to Jesus! And let us do so with JOY and EXCITEMENT because HE is what its all about!

This is an image that I just find so meaningful. To me, it shows how all the fluff and frills of the commercialized Christmas season can be fun, but never should compare nor outweigh our adoration of Jesus at his birth.

only four years!?

As I prepare today to leave Marquette for a month long Christmas break, I can't help but wonder where a whole semester has already gone! I feel as though I just got here and now I am already 1/8 done with my entire college career!

Whether its college or just life in general, it is easy to see how true it was when old people told you that life goes by faster and faster with every year. I have already been alive for nearly two decades and I have no idea where that time has gone!

I think that living life with the mindset that every day counts is probably the most productive way to spend your time here on earth. There are so many opportunities that we encounter in our lives to do good in this world. And for me at least, it is difficult to decide which of these wonderful opportunities I can realistically take advantage of. Especially in college, there are a plethora of things that you can do that later in life you may be no longer able to do.

So then how DO you decide what to do!?! For me, it has been extremely helpful to pray for God's will. I know that God has the ultimate plan for my life and asking him what he wants me to do has made my decision-making process much easier and more fulfilling too.

Sometimes its hard to forget about our own plans and just trust God to take care of our lives. Being a huge dreamer and planner continues to make that step difficult, especially when I feel like my plan sounds so great. But when I take to day-dreaming about my future, I try to remind myself that God already has my life all planned out from beginning to end and his plan is way more awesome than mine! His plan is PERFECT!

So as we try to decide what steps to take in life, what activities to get involved in, what jobs to apply for, what to do in our free time, it is important to remember that God want us to be happy and he wants us to live so our lives will fit into his plan for us. We do have to put in wholehearted effort if we want to experience God's plan for us.

Whatever brings you joy, fulfillment, humility, and most importantly, whatever brings glory to God, is what you should be doing. So when the worry sets in that life is too short to accomplish everything you want to do, just take a deep breath and remember to live today and everyday to spread joy and love to others and to praise God.  If you do these two things, all those good opportunities will somehow fit into your life and with that will come the satisfaction and fulfillment of knowing that your life here on earth matters.

Our time here on earth is so precious, like Peter says, "With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day" (2 Peter 3:8). My hope for you, and for myself, is that we can live our lives with happiness and gratitude, because even though our life is comparatively very short, God cares about every single day of our life and what we do does count as we seek, hope, and wait for the coming kingdom!

This is a picture of a few beautiful children in Ecuador. Lately, traveling there to provide aid and to learn more about the needs of the poor in this country has really been on my heart! So as I go through the process of deciding if, when, and how to take this trip, I pray that I will be able to do whatever God's will is for me and that you will keep these children, and all the hungry children in our world, in your prayers!

YOU ARE BLESSED!

Sometimes, we just get so caught up in the stresses of this world. Whether its school, work, finances, health problems, or worries about the future, we have to remember that we are all blessed in so many ways!

When circumstances are tough and life seems like a perpetual storm, it can be really really difficult to feel blessed. You may feel like you have nothing to be happy about at all. But the truth is, we have so many blessings and EVERYTHING to be JOYFUL about!

To start, we have food to eat, clothes to wear, (clearly computers on which to read this blog!). And what about our families, our friends, our freedoms, our opportunities to be educated or to get a job? Aren't those things blessings too? Much of the time they bring us joy, yet sometimes they do bring us stress or hurt or pain. But to be brutally honest, wallowing in the not so happy things in life won't make us feel any better at all.

My life isn't perfect, nobody's is. There will always be hard times and anxieties. But we have been promised, by the one true God, that those sad times WONT LAST FOREVER! Yes, you might cry an ocean of tears sometimes, and thats OKAY!  But the one thing that I try to remember every time those tears start to flow is the words of John in Revelation 7:17:

"And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes"

We are not meant to be sad forever! We are meant to rejoice in the beauty of the life God has given us! And if you truly feel you have absolutely nothing to feel blessed about, then here is one: God loves you and he sent his only son to die for you so that one day you could join him in his glory and never shed another tear.

To me, that is the most joyful and wonderfully amazing thing I could imagine.

So, if you are feeling a little less than blessed today, just remember someone loves you and that your life has been blessed since the moment it began.

So I leave you with this:
"Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

So count those blessings TODAY! And SMILE because God loves YOU!