Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Choose Joy

Joy is a choice; It's something you have to choose every single day. There are other things you have to choose everyday as well...reactions, feelings, love, happiness, fears, etc. I've been thinking a lot about this since Ilya was born. I look at her and see so much joy; everything is new; everything is an experience of some sort. She has her moments of fussiness but she is easily distracted into a new moment of joy (sometimes by simply moving her to the back door to stare at the dogs for a moment).
Something happens as we grow up - we let our emotions overwhelm us and take control over our day, even our year. If one thing goes wrong in the morning we tend to let it dictate how the rest of our day is going to go rather than look out the window for a moment. I am extremely guilty of this. I tend to let worry get the best of me and before I know it I am more negative than I wish to be.

I just finished the new Francine Rivers book Her Mothers Hope. Amazing book! If you didn't know she is one of my all time favorite authors. I highly recommend it. It is complicated to explain without giving away the entire book.

It really got me thinking about what I have let shape me as a person; past experiences that have made me the person I am. I then think about what I am passing on, what my hope is for my children. What have I done to "shape" them without even thinking about it. I know I have talked about this before on here but it is something that plagues me every single day. For example, one of the most common that we hear is, "I don't want my children to ever do without the way I did" or "I want my child to have the opportunities that I never had." Interesting thoughts though they are, it seems completely harmless but can turn into something that destroys the child rather than liberate them - and in the end can sometimes even destroy the parent/child relationship. We tend to want to be the potter and mold our children into something better than ourselves; We push and probe to the extreme out of fear of their/our failure. The true potter is God himself; He is the ONLY potter. We are the clay.

I'm still thinking things through and have in no way come to any conclusions. I can only turn it over to God and trust that he knows my heart and intentions - that he cleanses me of all my selfish thoughts and ways. I want to be a servant and do His will. I pray that I am the mother he calls me to be.

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