Finding Joy in the Simple

Lately I have been feeling lack of peace, but the kind of peace that comes with being ok with the world around me. I find that when I start to think more of myself, and think that I am better than those around me I don’t have peace or the joy that comes with it.

I am very much a person who likes things done, not necessarily in a certain order, but in a certain time frame. When it comes to the household if a pile has been left in a room for longer than an hour I notice, but when it has been a day or more I say something to the person that owns the pile and then I create a timeline in my head of how long it takes for that said person to take care of the pile. If it takes longer than a week for the pile to get taken care of I start the process of taking care of it myself which usually means the items end up in areas that their owners probably don’t want. I fail to realize that the pile might of stayed in the location longer I thought it should have because the person is using the items for a project, or they are trying to get through a busy week and just didn’t get to them when they thought they should. I let t he pile rob me of my peace and joy because it was something that bothered me more than it bothered the person who owned it. I was on the internet a little bit ago and I saw this video where this lady every morning had to pick her husband’s shorts off the floor. At first she was annoyed by it and kept making the comments that she wasn’t his momma and that he should pick up after himself. Then a friend of hers lost her husband, and while they visited over coffee her friend made the comment that she missed even doing the little things she used to do for her husband. What hit me most was that the first gal was seeing the inconvenience of the piles of the cleaning up after people, while the second gal, though she went through pain to see it was missing the joy of taking care of her husband.

Joy can be found in the simple, the sweet hello from your hubby when you wake up in the morning. It can come from knowing you finished a job and you did a good job doing it. It can come from knowing you held your tongue when you really wanted to say something but you were not in the right frame of mind. When I go to work a have a few main focuses. The main one is to make sure the patients I see that day are not only taken care of but that they feel special (ok so I work with animals literally all day long so just giving an extra pat on the head, or scrinch behind the ear is all it takes). After that my focus is to to my other duties well and then make it home by a decent hour. When you work in vet medicine you have a schedule that is given to you but on some days it feels more like a guideline than an actual schedule. So sometimes the focus can be more on getting the job done so that you can actually make it home for dinner, rather than finding the joy in having a really awesome job. Fridays tend to be that way for me. Don’t get me wrong, I love my Fridays but I tend to get testy towards the end of the day when some co-workers don’t do what I feel they should be doing to make it so we all can get out of there at a decent time. I get into the mentality that I just need to do it all so that things get done. Wow! Have I put myself on the pedestal! I am not any better than anyone I work with, and when I start to feel and act like I am my joy is robbed from me and it shows in how I interact with those around me. I mumble under my breath, I am snarky, I coat my words with kindness but underneath they are not so kind.

Joy comes in the simple things. Knowing that I am caring for the animals that come into the hospital. Knowing that I am care for my family. Knowing that I am caring for my friends. Knowing that I am not enough, that with God I can be. When I focus on what others are doing wrong I put myself above them. I see them through a lens that I shouldn’t be using. Joy comes from looking ahead to the Cross vs. looking to the left and the right and seeing things of this world. I am working on myself, working on spending more time on fixing myself with the help of prayer and looking for the simple joys around me. Joy comes from turning off the phone on the weekend, spending quality time with my family, reading the Bible not just books written about the Bible, observing the quiet but enjoying the noise. Joy comes from the simple, when we chose to step back and away from the daily grind and take in the completeness of God, and blessings He gives. Joy comes from stepping off the self made pedestals, getting out of the “me, me, me” mentality and seeing that there is more in this world than just me. I am a constant work in progress but becoming a God centered person rather than a “me” centered person will increase my Joy tenfold and that is worth working for. Until next time:

Do not love the world or the things in the world.  If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.  For all that is in the world---the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life-----is not of the Father but is of the world.  And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.    1 John 2:15-17