Acceptance-with-Joy

               I just finished a wonderfully glorious book, "Hinds' Feet on High Places" by Hannah Hurnard. It had been suggested that I read it for a few years but between classes and a multitude of other excuses, I never got around to it. But then, I got it for Christmas. And thanks to this HUGE snow storm and the 4 snow days... I have finished it! This book is fiction yes, but it is an allegory which means that it has a parallel to the Bible. And boy did it ever...

                As the book sits next to me while I write this, I can't get this one idea out of my head, so I thought I would share it with you. It's the idea of 'Acceptance-with-joy'. These are such simple words, yet I keep thinking about them, and have throughout the entire book. Being in the schools, on Facebook, and just in this world, I have noticed that we (as Americans.. or Humans...) place a lot of value on accepting. Whether that be accepting each other (opinions, thoughts, choices), our situation in life (money, job, love life, family), or the outcome of a sports game (because goodness knows there are a lot of Facebook posts when it is a big game)... we place value on acceptance.

                But what if instead of just accepting, we were joyful about it. Now, I don't mean happy... I mean joyful. Sure, you may not be where you want to be in life. Sure, you may not have the money that you think you should have. Those things are unfortunate and I don't want to minimize them, but what if we looked and were thankful that we are alive or that we have a job. What if we accepted where we were in life, and reacted with joy? What if we looked at someone else's opinion, accepted it, and reacted with joy? What if we admitted that the other team played better and accepted that we lost... with joy?

                I challenge you, friends, to try and display acceptance-WITH-joy in your daily lives. It may be hard, but we are in this together.