For some reason, yesterday was the worst day that I’ve had in a long time. At church, our pastor gave an excellent sermon on something that is hard for me to grasp so I was frustrated. Then we had the king of awkwardness in our prayer group for Sunday school and I was embarassed/awkward the whole time. When I got back to the dorm, my computer decided that it wanted to play a little game with me. It’s real fun. See, if I get more than half a program running, then it starts screaming and the engine (hard drive?) goes real fast and then it just turns off. It did that at least ten times yesterday. It’s especially fun when you have a word document that you want to save but your computer decides to “hide” from you. Well, after letting the stupid piece of plastic and metal get the best of me, and beating it about the keyboard a couple of times, I realized that was stupid. This isn’t even Hitler or a child abuser or Jezebel. It’s a Dell. Just a computer, why am I angry at it? Anyway, that’s not the point. I was just in a bad mood. I felt drained of all my joy. I told Josh I was in a bad mood and he said that I needed to remember that our joy doesn’t depend on our circumstances. Then it clicked and I just understood. 

Hebrews 1:9- (talking about Jesus) You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God has set You above your companions by anointing you with the oil of JOY.

Good news, kids.  Jesus has been anointed with joy and yes, guess who lives in us. Yes, Jesus. God is so great and gracious that we have a joy that doesn’t depend on our circumstances. We don’t have to have a perfect life, perfect job, perfect relationship, perfect health, perfect grades, perfect clothes, perfect computer (snarl), perfect anything, to be joyful. Isn’t that awesome?  Our hope and joy rests in something that is so much more powerful and everlasting than any of that. So, if you feel like you’ve lost your joy, know that you haven’t. It’s still there, waiting in God’s beautiful hands, waiting for you to come and take it back.