It was 1:00 AM on my birthday morning. I awoke feeling very unwell and my heart sank. A quick look in the mirror confirmed my suspicion; my eye infection was once again raging. I would be headed back to the ER/hospital on my birthday although I had just been discharged late afternoon just the day before. My heart hurt. I felt an overwhelming dread come over me. My sweet momma had been working for days preparing a special birthday lunch with all my favorites. Instead, I would be spending the day in the hospital with IV’s to try once again to get an unresponsive and mysterious infection under control.

In that instance, I knew. I knew that I had a choice to make. How would I respond?

First, I turned it over to our Lord, praying for a miracle when I awoke a few hours later. Then, I prayed that I would choose joy and that He would show Himself strong in my life through it. I had to remind myself multiple times that the feeling of dread and fear was just that, a feeling. God is greater than our feelings. I needed to turn to the promises of His Word!

When I awoke for the day and found that God had not answered the way I wanted, I chose my outfit carefully by wearing my “Choose Joy” shirt to remind me throughout the day to both remind me of what choice I had that day and to hopefully glorify God and be a good ambassador for Him.

An early morning call with my sister had us crying and praying together. My mom and I did the same thing a bit later. And then, the God-sightings and lessons began again. I hope to share some of these things in the coming days.

One of the things that stood out is that joy and pain, rejoicing and hardship, and praise and weary can co-exist. God can give us joy in the midst of it! Many of you are in the midst. Please cry out to Him. Decide to choose joy. It doesn’t lessen the hard. (I cried that morning when I realized I was headed back to the hospital.) It means we can go through it with joy and an unexplainable peace.

What is your hard today? What is your choice? As a friend used to ask me repeatedly, “How big is your God?”