Hello!!!! So to start off….My name is now Joy. I felt God saying this is my name and I want to continue sharing the joy of the Lord through my name and me. Don’t worry I am not changing it legally 🙂 Here is how I got that name.
God is showing up in my life in ways that I never imagined. God is bigger and better then we could ever imagine. I went into our squad debrief thinking I had it all figured out and together. As usual I don’t have it all together and God knows that. I came into those 5 days together knowing that God wanted to work in and through me. I heard his voice in team debrief when I realized he was showing me my identity. My identity isn’t from the world or others around me but only God. In my last blog I listed some of the things that weren’t from God and others that are from God.
God again told me he is going to strip off those that aren’t from him. It is like a band aid that is being taken off slowly. It may hurt but so worth it in the end. God told me that coming into month 9 in Tanzania that this month was for me and him. He was going to show things to me more powerfully then I could imagine. I asked him for time apart from ministry to be with him. He of course will arrange that prior to my asking.
As I was talking to a few people at our debrief I came to realize that I wasn’t moving forward as I had thought. Yes I have changed and am making progress in many areas, but not in ways I thought. When I sat down to chat with a former squad leader of ours, his first question was “how come you haven’t moved forward?” I got a little defensive and thought of course I have moved forward how could you ask that? Yet I knew there was more to that question. He had been with our team in the first weeks of Dominican, so he knew that I had lots of joy and through my laughter alone I had joy to share. He challenged me at that time to continue in joy no matter what. Well 6 months later I still wasn’t carrying that joy.
If you can picture an hour glass for a minute, this is what my joy looks like. My joy is at the bottom of the glass and all the other stuff that I am working on to get rid of is at the top slowly sifting through to the bottom. So my bitterness, anger, envy, jealousy etc is suppressing my joy. Instead my hour glass should be joy at the top and all the other stuff at the bottom. So to put it simply my joy is being pushed down by everything else in there. Now my challenge is to have joy even in the midst of brokenness and everything else. Others need that joy and I am being selfish by not sharing it.
He also said that he felt God saying that I had a spirit over me that had to leave as it was suppressing my joy. Basically I can be free with my team and be joyful. But with the big group it is hard. At times I will be joyful and let my joy go, but then feel judged and shrink back into queit little me. By the way that is not my character at all. I love to be free and joyful and just be crazy at times. So why do I keep going back to who I am not? Because I have fear of man and what they think. So on that Monday night I had a few girls anoint me with oil to signify that the old spirit is gone, and the new spirit is upon me. No more FEAR of what others think or judgement. That is not from God.
So coming to you from Joy herself, I hope and pray that all of you can get the joy of the Lord amidst life’s circumstances. This coming month is going to be a time of healing and restoration from me.
Rejoice in the Lord always again I say rejoice!
Joy:)
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