1/25/04 † 8:46 p.m. Retreat Part I- JOY

This weekend at the retreat, the speaker had this little "fruits of the spirit" demonstration that he did...basically, you wrote on a clothespin what fruit of showed such as joy, love, patience, etc., and then you clipped it on the person you thought was an example of that.

Well, it really hit me when my roomate got more of the joy and good things like that than I did...AND SHE'S NOT EVEN A CHRISTIAN!!!! That really disturbed me. I didn't get one joyful/cheerful/friendly type of pin. I got, "wisdom, maturity, sincerity, serving, and gentleness."

And I realized that it is a SIN not to have joy. I need to figure out how exactly to go about that, but I know it starts with being content with WHEREVER you're at in life. That's so much easier said than done though...:(

You know, I don't think I was always quite this depressed...like, when I lived back up in Virginia, I can remember people commmenting to me a few times that I was always so "cheerful, joyful, full of the spirit," etc. Which surprised me because I thought I wasn't cheerful enough at the time...but I'm one of those people who's very socially motivated, and it makes me very happy to be with friends. I think that's what spun me into this...the move was a shock- we found out about it 2 months before we moved here (the move was actually supposed to be 2 weeks after I learned of it, but got extended when we didn't sell our house right away), and I had taken my time getting to know people because I thought we were going to live there forever since my Dad had finally retired from the Marine Corps...then 9/11 happened, and my Dad lost his job with the airlines, and we had to move yet again.

I still don't really know where I'm FROM...we've lived here for a year and a half, we lived in Virginia for 2 and a half years, Arizona before that for 3, Colorado before that for 3, and then I was born in North Carolina and lived there till I was 11...

But anyhow, my problem has alwasy been than I have based my happiness on how many friends I have, and whether or not I'm popular (I was considered semi-popular back up in VA- I say semi, because some people saw me that way, but in reality, even though I knew alot of people at my college, I could walk down the hall and know at least 2 people I passed or sit down in the cafeteria and just wait and 4 people I knew would come hang out with me, I only really had 2 people that I could actually call to hang out with on the weekend). So when I moved here, and didn't go to college for a year to wait for in-state tuition & a scholarship (I decided to also take correspondence classes), or work for 6 months (was looking for a job but couldn't find one), and there were no people my age at my church during the school year, I got depressed.

That's the thing that happens when you build your happiness on people. People aren't perfect. And even if they appear to be, there's no guarantee that you will always have them around. That's why it's SOO important to build your happiness on God's love, not the love of people...but it's so hard, because God's not a tangible Being. But I'm learning...and I do have alot of good days (although it seems I mostly write about bad ones in here...hmmm, I'll have to work on that!!!), and I pray that God will teach me how to be content and rely on HIM for joy!

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