Are You Choosing Joy?

My middle daughter, Amy, is serving a mission in New Jersey for the LDS Church. She has been gone since August, and she hasn't been in a position to read any of these entries. She sends a letter by email every week, and I found a portion of this week's letter to be very enlightening and so close to my own thinking that it was a little uncanny. We are most definitely on the same wavelength even though we're thousands of miles apart and, due to mission guidelines, we only communicate by email once a week.

Here is the paragraph in her letter that really put a smile on my face. It is joyful just to know that someone you love is "getting it!" Go, Amy!

"In companionship study the other day we talked about the purpose of life being that we 'might have joy.'" I have been pondering that thought and I realized that that is our greatest challenge. Joy is a choice. We know that the same spirit that possesses our bodies in this life will possess our bodies in the life to come. If we have chosen to be miserable and to focus on the pain and the sorrow and the trials of life, we will still feel that way in the world to come. However, if we choose joy and peace and light and love here in this life, we will be able to receive even more of that in the next life. Our challenge is not to trudge through life in a miserable way until we finally die and receive our reward of joy. It is to create joy and share it with others so that we can continue in that joy forever."

Yes, joy really is a choice when we accept that it is and are willing to take accountability for what we're choosing and how we're feeling. I want to feel terrific! Don't you?

InJoy,
Cristi