Focusing on The Word by Amy Nicholson
The day after Christmas, I received a text from a close friend. What will your word for 2023 be? She was talking about a focus word, a character trait I will work on practicing throughout the year. Instead of making New Year’s resolutions that would always stress me out and make me feel worse about myself, for the past few years, I’ve instead chosen focus words. They’ve served me well. For the most part.
My friend told me her word for the coming year was JOY. Beautiful, right? It is. But instead of giving me a warm feeling around my heart and one of those goofy smiles like the Grinch had when he finally came into the light, her words made me chuckle. JOY was my word for this past year. Since I hadn’t mastered it yet, I’d already decided, it would serve a second term as my word for the coming year as well. Actually, what am I saying? Not only had I not mastered the fine art of finding joy, for most of the year, I’d downright forgotten all about it. When a family member was in the hospital after a breakdown? Joy was the furthest thing from my mind. When I went in for emergency retina surgery? Nope, didn’t think about joy then either. When my daughter went away to college and a week later we learned it was not all sunshine and roses? You know joy was left in the dust of this mama’s rearview mirror. Why couldn’t I let the joy of the Lord be my strength? Why couldn’t I consider it all joy when I endured various trials?
Let’s back up to fall 2021 when the Lord gave me JOY as a focus word. I knew autumn was early to receive an answer to a New Year’s prayer I hadn’t even prayed yet, but, then again, God’s timing is always perfect. On Oct. 15, 2021 (with a 2022 JOY goal tucked safely in my back pocket), I woke up dizzy, my heart racing, and too nervous to walk anywhere for fear I’d fall down. Me, who never gets sick and, other than giving birth, has almost never gone to the hospital. Well, that day I went to the hospital. I spent the day there getting hydrated and undergoing tests, but then, after my blood pressure went down to an acceptable level, I went home. With a diagnosis of high blood pressure. I dealt with that a little. Had some follow-up appointments, started exercising again, cut some salt out of my diet, and focused on my health until Christmas when a family situation absorbed all my attention.
The New Year came and went. Good thing I already had my word because with the crisis unfolding, I wasn’t aware of anything else. And there it was, 2022, the year I would try to be more joyful. Not just peaceful. I could usually be that. Not just content with the resources I’d been given. I could easily do that, too. I wanted to be more light-hearted. Smile more easily. Gosh, smiling at all would be an improvement. If I claim to be filled with the Holy Spirit–and I do–why don’t it show more?
I can’t say the concept of joy did not visit my brain once in a while. Even though 2022 was one of the most joyless ones I can remember, with crises and accidents and illnesses and hospitalizations, and me allowing myself to be completely distracted, every once in a while, I’d remember that word God had had me put in my back pocket. I’d laugh to myself. Yeah, right. I’m still not getting it right.
And then when my daughter was sick ON CHRISTMAS DAY 2022, the default switch in my brain that moves to an alternate power source–positivity, the “bright” side–was working. (It was Christmas, after all.) The alternate response to stress begins: At least. At least we were still able to celebrate our Christmas morning together as a family, even if we didn’t travel to see extended family in the afternoon as we had planned. At least it was only the first time in 26 years of parenthood that we had a sick child at Christmas time. All these years we were blessed by that and didn’t even notice it.
As I pondered the idea of seeking joy in the new year, trying to come up with a game plan where I might have some hope of success, I started to wonder if I should be seeking joy out there or if maybe I already possessed it in here. In Christian circles, I’m forever hearing people warn me about not letting the enemy steal my joy. I recalled that warning and did a quick check about Scripture references to joy and the enemy as a thief. There are many.
But it struck me that if joy was something the enemy could steal, that means it was something I already possessed. That idea intrigued me the most about that whole concept.
I homed in on this passage:
As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and [that] your joy might be full. ~ John 15:9-11 KJV
According to this verse, if I am keeping God’s commandments, I’m abiding in His love. Jesus told us these things so that His joy would remain in us. That means I already have joy. If I already have it, I don’t need to go looking for it somewhere else. It’s not an elusive treasure I need a map to find and a shovel to unearth. If anything, His joy is hidden in me. If I’m going to go searching anywhere, it’ll have to be my own heart. So I told my friend I was going to give JOY another go. Only this time, I’m looking to Jesus. My wise and wonderful friend responded I’m starting to believe that the process is just as valuable as the end feeling. That is what it’s about. I have caught myself trying to remember Jesus is always with me. In the hard times, at the hospital, in the decision making, in the middle of the night when fear threatens to sweep me up in its tempest. Jesus is there. I need to abide in Him. He is where joy is found. He is joy.
Amy Nicholson lives with her husband and three children by a waterfall in northwest Connecticut, finding grace in ordinary places. Her writing has been published in Clerestory, Ruminate Reader’s Notes, and Today’s American Catholic, among other places and on her website: www.amynicholson14.wordpress.com.