Count it ALL Joy (pt 2)

I was sitting here eating a banana this morning reading with the She Reads Truth gang about the fruit of the Spirit and I had me some thoughts. 

I would love to share them with you beloved reader, and I apologize in advance if none of it makes sense because I'm only on my first cup of coffee. 

The past few weeks have been a heavy flow of one sad, depressing, rough and tough love song for those around me that I hold near and dear.   Although my home has only been plagued with your garden variety of hardships, nothing has quite come even remotely close to the difficult things that have been circling around me. I'm not one who can hear about your sadness and move on my merry way. Some can, and God bless them because they are the folk that keep the world spinning around, but this girl carries with her the sadness like a catchy tune that just lingers day after day. It's the only thing that I can think about.
So it seems strange to me that I would sit here and feel compelled to write some more on the topic of JOY, but in my reading this morning I came across this ;
"In your presence there is fullness of JOY" Ps 16:11   For some reason this just jumped off the page and reminded me that the JOY of the LORD is my strength. It's not something you can conjure up or create.  This joy, that is "of the Lord"  *(sorry that just made me think of the movie Nacho Libre and  "these are the Lord's chips"  quote... I feel like every time I mention "the joy of THE LORD" for this blog we should say it in a Nacho Libre accent) Ok so this JOY "of the Lord" is not like taking a happy pill or going around singing that happy song that asks you to clap along, even though I do love that song and usually clap along.   Its something completely different than the emotion of happy. 
The joy "of the Lord" is almost like a character trait that comes only from being in the Lover of your Souls presence.  It's not my joy. Its not a fake happy. It's a state of being that never leaves.
You can be going through just about anything and still not be in the "depths of despair" as Anne of Green Gables would say, because you know deep down in your knower that everything really will be ok.
That's not to say that I don't still have a heavy heart for the very difficult things that are going on around me. I can also grieve and cry and feel sadness, but those aren't the constant in my life. Because I have learned a very long time ago that with this particular kind of genetic make up... the kind that would be described as; *Wearing your heart on your sleeve *Being overly sensitive *Having a Sentimental heart it is best not to ignore the tune, but rather to dive deep into the pain, and then sing it to the lover of my soul.
Because as I sing the sad love song, the song that He has felt so much more than I can imagine He listens and then carries on. His hands are strong and able to heal much better. His heart is unbreakable and much bigger than mine. His eyes never slumber nor sleep. He is always mindful of his creation and knows best how to comfort them all.  So I leave the sadness with him and he replaces it with JOY, that then becomes my strength. 

"Consider it wholly joyful, my brethren and sisteren, whenever you are enveloped in or encounter trials of any sort or fall into various temptations. Be assured and understand that the trial and proving of your faith bring out endurance and steadfastness and patience.