It's been a long time coming, and as I notice it more and more, I start to realize it's been arriving little by little for quite some time.
For the past several months I made a conscious effort to pursue peace. Suggested to me by a friend, I sought out, chased after a sense of peace. This seeking, of course, was born out of a lack of, and need for, peace. Circumstances shook my sense of peace, deeper still my sense of faith. There is much left to journey through, and like any true psychologist I acknowledge that I may forever be "processing" and "reframing" the events of the last year of my life, figuring out what they mean for me and how they have impacted and shaped me into who I am now, altering me by their occurrence and my subsequent reactions to them. I started out looking for peace, intentionally trying to find it, from that lack and that need. And over time, through prayer, and searching in all the right and all the wrong places, my sense of peace has grown considerably. Though I wander, He is faithful. I feel I am still rebuilding, better yet, being rebuilt, spiritually. But I feel so much more peaceful than I did just a few "short" months ago. So much can change in a few months. I can't lay claim to an ever-present sense of peace, but most days I am more peaceful than not, a radical difference from where I was just five months ago, and for that I am thankful. The peace I have now is more a divine gift in spite of, rather than the result of, my having sought after it, but I believe God has blessed and used my struggles just the same.
Over perhaps the past month or even two (hey, time flies in your senior year of college), I've noticed more and more peace within me. Further still, I've noticed joy rekindling. Not just fleeting moments of happiness, not the kind I last blogged about that burst across the sky and quickly fade. No, this joy that I am starting to feel more and more often once again is the kind that slowly builds and then lingers there. The kind I hadn't felt in a while, and forgot how wonderful it is to feel. The kind of joy that makes me crinkle my nose and wave my arms and dance around like a little kid. The kind of joy that spills over and makes me smile to myself. A deep, true, joy that makes the sun shine brighter once again. It's addictive, in a good way. And so I'm deciding now to pursue joy.
It's a good time of the year to chase after joy, when everyone is wishing it upon you. It's a hopeful, generous, joyous time of year, Christmas. I suppose joy is not so radically different from peace, really. When I am finally resting, content and at peace, it is then that my eyes and my heart can be open to looking for and feeling joy. So pursuing joy will mean also continuing my pursuit of peace, building on the peace I've found/been given over the past few months.
There is much journeying left to be done. The next year of my life is full of uncertainty. Undoubtedly it will push me and pull me to grow and change in ways impossible to foresee. And I'm looking forward to it, not only with a sense of peace, but also with a sense of joy. :)
This post is probably a bit cryptic and riddled with writing errors, but I'm really not sure how to put these thoughts into words, so I finally decided to just go for it. It would have been pretty sad to have only one blog post for the entire year, and sadder still to have that one blog post reflect the hardest part of the year, and not the journey I've been living since then. So I have no grand conclusion or call-to-action for readers. But here's an update, my thoughts and experience shared, for whatever it is worth: at the very least, a helpful reminder for me when I look back five months or more from now. :)
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