I woke up this morning, aches and pains in every part of my body that could possibly ache. . . or so it seemed, at least.

Crawling out of my warm comfy bed, I determined in my heart to be glad for another day; to be grateful for any little old thing. As the morning progressed, I gave thanks for my sweet husband who was pestering me to death with questions about Christmas, did we do this, did we do that. . . was I going to get this done. . . Oh my, I was extra grateful for that second cup of joe. . .

Getting a shower, I was so grateful for the hot water from my faucet, you see, the heat combined with the moisture of the water, helped ease a few of the aches I was experiencing.  Old age is not for the faint hearted!  Especially not when paired with arthritis and Polymyalgia rheumatica. But such is life!

Slowly but surely, I felt a spark of joy take hold, just a tiny spark to be sure, but it was burning brightly in the darkness.

As I paid the bills pending for the rest of the month, I was reminded to be glad that we can pay our bills, and to be joyful that we have a fraction of the bills that we had this time last year and much, much less than the year before.

You see, Jim and I determined about five years ago to begin eliminating debt and paying off everything we could. We are smart enough to realize that in just a few more short years we will be too old to work, or at least we won’t want to work quite so hard! It is amazing to see how the Lord has blessed our determination and we have slowly but surely dug out of a huge pile of debt.

Oh, most of the debt we owed were for valid things, a wedding or two, trips home to see family, a home to live in, clothing to wear, a helping hand when a kid needed a car – or three. . .  an auto accident, or several, and the hospital bills, the list could go on and on. And quite honestly, some of it I’d not do, if I had it to do over again, but then again, isn’t that how we learn life lessons? And so there it is, we are almost on top of that pile of bills, God willing and the creek don’t rise, we might just make it all the way!

My joy mounted.  I received a note from a sister, just wanting to know if I was all right.  I was reminded how very blessed we are to have loved ones who truly do care about how we are doing. . . right now. Some folks are not so fortunate.

And so, as the day progressed, I put on a big old pot of pinto beans with a ham bone. What a blessing to have food to cook, for electricity to cook with, for a lovely little home to sit at our very own table and eat the food when we want. No one is telling us when or what to do, and we can come and go as we please. Oh! There is so much to be thankful for.

It seems that the more I focused on the wonderful things in my life, today, that my joy grew expeditiously. . .  now why do we not do this simple little thing of capturing our joy more often? Of determining to find things to be grateful for!

Even now as I sit and write this blog, and listen to the beautiful Christmas music playing on my sound system, I am overwhelmed with the Joy of the Season, and the Love of the Heavenly Father.

Joy is captured and held tightly in my soul as I prepare to weather the storms that are sure to come. Today, I have joy unspeakable.