THIS IS HOW WE ROLL...

Life has been pretty rough as of late. Things just don't seem to be going as planned...any of it. But God doesn't guarantee that things will go as I planned. He doesn't guarantee I'll even wake up tomorrow morning.

However, He DOES guarantee...
       He will never leave me.
              He will be with me always - even to the end of time.
                      He holds me in the palm of His hand.
                               Nothing can seperate us...NOTHING.

So when things get tough around here what do we do?
We laugh...then we cry...then we laugh some more. Some people may consider us strange because if there's one thing that can be said about our family - we smile and laugh A LOT. I've even offended some people because I laugh all the time. I don't mean it as an offense. God has just chosen to reveal a side of life to me that some don't see. Maybe I don't take life serious enough. BUT, I do LOVE life. And that's just how we roll.

The sad part of this is that it's how we used to roll. Things have happened this past year that have caused us to laugh a lot less. A heaviness has settled on our hearts and lives that has somehow robbed us of our joy. And we hadn't noticed this until just recently. Daryl and I knew something was wrong, we just couldn't put our finger on it until last night when he sauntered into the kitchen and said he'd figured something out. We are missing our JOY!

So where did it go? How did it slip from our home? It's as if it slowly frittered away without us even realizing it! But I don't think it happened slowly - I think JOY just packed it up and skeedaddled. Where did our joy come from? How do we get it back?

I know the Lord provided our home with a great deal of joy. When we were more focused on Him and serving Him things bounced along at a tigger pace with a great deal of joy. Nothing could touch us - that's how we rolled or rather bounced along. Things began their decline when the stresses of life closed in around us. We couldn't sell our home. We had family struggles. We worked hard.

We dove into retail therapy for our relief rather than our Bibles.

But the Bible tells us to SEEK FIRST the Kingdom of God. It says if we SEEK Him we will find Him. It says to cast your cares upon the Lord for He cares for you. It talks about focusing on the heavenly things and the things of this world will dim by comparison.

So...it's time for us to refocus. To seek Him first and rekindle the JOY of our salvation. It's time for JOY to move back into our home. We need to do this so that we can get back into life as it should be because this is how we roll!!!