Today...

I choose to:

“Give up 
the bitterness, the anger, the sadness

for what isn’t,
that you wish you had.

And embrace the gift of what you do have.

For therein is really what you want more of:

Joy.”

{Elizabeth Elliot}

I chose it yesterday

and will choose it again tomorrow.

Someone asked me recently what word I would want others to remember me by.

JOY

It's the one word that resonates inside me daily.

It's my choice..

One of the FRUIT of the SPIRIT placed in me at salvation...

it waits for me every day to pick it.

{ooh, ooh...pick me!}

It sits here at my table 

and here where I sit to read and be fed 

The working out of it is not as easy...

I can KNOW what is right

READ continually about what is right

but until I live it out hour by long hour

I am not really learning what it means to live in JOY.

For instance, 

Last night when my middle child tried to start a little fun in the kitchen 

by whopping me in the head with a bag of bread

and I reacted like an unleashed beast....

That was not choosing JOY.

Basically I stink at choosing it all the time...

But I WANT to

and that's a start.

So here it is,

Scenes from the last week of

 choosing JOY 

and

counting God's Gifts...

The following are in reaction to two boy-men who discovered they had

 inadvertently dressed alike:

notice the scowl on the oldest... 

the joy on the younger...

{the younger asking, "Mom, did you get me posing like a Hollister model?"} 

and the daughter who was not about to be left out of the shots... 

and the dog who just wants to be everyone's best friend... 

JOY...

The oldest, who upon seeing the above pics decided to SHAVE...

{Hearing The Hallelujah Chorus rising in crescendo in my head?} 

JOY!

conversations of the most important kind... 

man vs beast 

JOY!

Count them...

THREE bodies

In my driveway

Playing together

Just like the old days...

JOY!