Joy, Hope and Faith

I spent the Solar Eclipse 2017 with Sarah and her girls. It was +98% totality where she lives. It was exciting. It was eerie. Tonight as I scrolled FB one of my "On This Day" memories was a blog post I originally wrote in 2015. I shared it as a re-run last year. After reading it this evening I was going to re-re-run it. And I am. With an addition prompted by eclipse thoughts.

Joy, Hope and Faith 

Think about what brings you joy.

(Joy, defined here as the unexplainable feeling of wellness 
that is not dependent upon situations or circumstance.)

No, really, stop right now.

Take as much time as you need to identify what brings you joy.

Got it?

Hold on to it.

Write it down if you need to.

Do whatever it takes for you to be able to recall it.

The next time life throws a nasty punch at you, 
one that takes your breath away, 
sends you reeling, 
knocks you senseless,
takes you to the ground, 
makes you question how you will ever go on, 
I challenge you to think about what brings you joy.

No, really, decide right now 
that you will stop right then,
in the midst of the chaos:

1. To take as much time as you need to identify what brings you joy.
2. And when you have it firmly in mind again, hold on to it.
3. Do whatever it takes to focus on joy.

Why? (original answer)

Because in the midst of our suffering,
identifying what brings us joy, 
can fuel rejoicing, 
which is the beginning of hope,
and hope is an integral part of our faith.

Eclipse 2017 ending:

Why?

Because if we are not careful, in the midst of our suffering,

we can easily allow suffering to become our focus.

Focusing on suffering will feed our pain.

Feeding our pain can blind us to Truth.

Beware of looking at life through the dark lenses of pain and suffering alone.

They are lenses that can prevent us from seeing the Son.

And we need Him. We need His light to dispel the darkness.

Don't allow pain and suffering to eclipse your joy, hope and faith.

Focusing on joy and hope, in the midst of our pain feeds our faith.

Or maybe our faith, in the midst of suffering feeds our joy and hope.

I don't know for sure how it works, 

I only know that it does.

"Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through Him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:1-8