It was a Wednesday morning and everything already seemed to be going wrong. I felt sick, I was tired and woke up with my back hurting from my bed for the last week and I had been arguing with my husband about everything under the sun.
I was looking forward to work and seeing all the girls in the stamping room. As I walked into The Vintage Pearl studio, my boss asked me to stamp a special order for a lady that said “choose joy”. While stamping we make our pieces one letter at a time. So as I worked on this order I was forced to “c-h-o-o-s-e-j-o-y”. It was getting pounded into my head over and over and in turn letting me see how I needed to choose joy in the midst of everything. I had to stamp almost 100 of those and by the end I was choosing joy and feeling much happier.
After I had finished I was asked to stamp pieces that simply said “faith”. As I was stamping out the first piece God opened my eyes again and showed me how I needed to have faith about things in my life. I actually giggled because I thought how awesome God is for using the little things like work to show us how much He still cares about us. After completing “faith” came “grace”. This one was one I didn’t want to stamp because I knew how I had not had grace towards my husband lately and chose to be hurt and mad. But again God took that time of stamping and made it a time of healing and teaching. It was almost time for me to go home and I started the final charm I had to make and it said “mercy”. I didn’t get many done but just enough for God to start talking to me.
And as I clocked out and drove home for the night I felt like I had been renewed and was so excited to tell my husband about all God had talked to me about!
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This is from Whitney, one of our amazing stampers,
thanks for sharing Whitney!
Beautiful story! Thanks for sharing.
Thank you for the sweet reminder. I know God is mindful of each of us individually. He is standing by to help usfind and experience joy.
isnt it comforting to be reminded that God is an all loving, all forgiving God ? … he loves you because of who He is, not because of anything you have or have not done … Whitney, your story is heart warming, thank you so very much for sharing … I have a handstamped bracelet from VP that honors my brother who dies from brain cancer at the at of 38 in March, the bracelet means the absolute world to me as a charm hangs from it that contains some of his ashes … hearing your story now makes me realize that wonderful caring loving hands touched this piece befreo I even laid eyes on it … it keeps getting better and better ! <3
Beautiful. And so true that He often speaks through the small, mundane things of life if we’ll let Him.
Thanks for not only willing to share your story but your willingness to share it as such a personal level. I too am struggling in my own home. In the middle of a move, going to have to take the kinder girl out and move her 6 weeks before the year is done, the financial strain of the move as well as where we are going to is WAY more expensive–all these things help me forget we had peace about this move and I’m grabbing my burdens from God over and over again–implying I need them more than He can handle them.
Thanks for encouraging me to walk in joy, faith, grace, and mercy today!
I so needed this this morning! I have had the same kind of morning and sometimes it is just hard to remember that God is in charge. We let the little things build up and distract us. Thanks for sharing!!
I love that! Thank you for sharing. God is awesome and if we will be still and listen he speaks to us often.
I just read a Christian meditation this morning titled the exact same thing “choosing joy”….here it is :
Henri Nouwen Society – Daily Meditation
Monday January 30, 2012
Choosing Joy
Joy is what makes life worth living, but for many joy seems hard to find. They complain that their lives are sorrowful and depressing. What then brings the joy we so much desire? Are some people just lucky, while others have run out of luck? Strange as it may sound, we can choose joy. Two people can be part of the same event, but one may choose to live it quite differently than the other. One may choose to trust that what happened, painful as it may be, holds a promise. The other may choose despair and be destroyed by it.
What makes us human is precisely this freedom of choice.
- Henri J. M. Nouwen
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Text excerpts taken from Bread for the Journey, by Henri J.M. Nouwen, ©1997 HarperSanFrancisco. All Scripture from The Jerusalem Bible ©1966, 1967, and 1968 Darton, Longman & Todd and Doubleday & Co. Inc. Photo by V. Dobson.
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Thanks, Whitney! What a great thing to remember EVERY morning! God bless you!
Love this God wink
story!
Love this!!! Thank you so much for sharing this. I needed to read about choosing Joy!
God is good all the time. How cool is that. Love it.
You all made me a lovely stamp key chain that has “she brings joy” on it before my baby came. We’re getting to that stage where it’s not all cute giggles and fun. “No” has crept into the vocabulary. But I drift by my keys and I see that little heart hanging there and I know, no matter what, that my girl is my joy. My gift. And boy am I a doofus to forget for even one moment that Someone out there is looking after me and mine.
Stamping, folding laundry, mopping floors, grading papers… whatever it is that brings you back, it’s a glorious thing.
Wonderful story – thanks for sharing and thank you to Whitney for allowing it to be shared with us.
i think i need to come work for you
Thanks for sharing…I learned today in bible study, Beth Moore James, that Greetings in the Greek translation means Joy to You!
This blog was exactly what I needed to read today… Thanks for sharing!
Thank you for sharing. This happens so often in my life, and I fail to share it with others due to my own insecurities. Your story lifted me today.
I think we can all relate with how you were feeling. Thank you for sharing what God shared with you. Blessings. <3
Wow. Thank you for this. It really touched my heart.
I love how God speaks to us through such simple means. It reminds me that often times…less is more!
Now, I will think of you as well as Ashley when I wear my “choose joy” necklace. Thank you for the love that you put into it…. I feel the “joy”!