Trusting the Ultimate Joy

It was bound to happen.

I’ve been embracing the thought of “joy” from the first of the year with gusto, and even though it hasn’t been perfect, God has certainly shown me joy in a TON of places.

Until this week.

For a lot of reasons I won’t list, mostly because they are private and not something I can share, the week started off super bad.

And yesterday, I found out some bad news about a little girl whom I’ve been praying for that is at Vanderbilt. Her parents will be saying goodbye to her and taking her off life support today. She’s only 5, and last summer had the surgery Annabelle WOULD have had this coming summer had she not gotten her heart transplant. My heart aches for them. There are no words to describe… while I don’t know what they are going through, I sat as a parent in the ICU for a VERY long time and watched more parents than I could count have to do the same thing.

And our fun week will culminate tomorrow, in Annabelle going for her own (be it minor) surgery. She’ll be having her ear tubes replaced and a sedated hearing test.

Super minor and by no means am I worried, but I’m quite a bit concerned about the outcome of the hearing evaluation.

On a quite hilarious note, Anna Reese (for those of you who remember, this was Annabelle’s heart friend in the hospital… who they both decided to orchestrate returns to the hospital at the same time multiple times… to which we decided that playdates were going to have to happen so they would stop!) was to go in for an MRI and a bronchoscopy on Tuesday, but it was postponed until… yes, you guessed it. Friday. The Anna’s will be PACU mates Friday morning!

So… I guess maybe that’s my joy for the week?

But here’s the thing.

While I’m a firm believer that God gives us little bits of joy to keep us going if we choose to look for them and hold on to them…

I also know that when our eyes are fixed on Jesus, the great I Am, the prince of PEACE, then the bad stuff fades into the background.

JESUS is our ultimate joy giver.

NO one can steal the joy we have in Jesus. Not parents or spouses or children or strangers or friends or bosses or coworkers. NO ONE.

Jesus can take our broken hearts and piece them back together. He can kiss the ouchies of our heart and soothe them like no other if we let him.

So, even though joy seemed tough to find there for a bit… I’m so thankful that God waved his arms and said, “Hey, Krista, up here! Just look up here, don’t look down, and you’ll be fine. Trust me.”

Here’s to looking UP for our joy today!


Prayers Requested:

PLEASE keep the sweet little girl and her family in your prayers today.

And please keep Annabelle and Anna Reese in your prayers tomorrow, that everything go SUPER smooth and they get to go right back home!!!