How to add happiness and joy to my everyday life

How do we add happiness and joy to our everyday ordinary lives?

I had a little girl who was so full of life and fun and party.

Every opportunity she had, every waking moment she would exclaim, “what are we going to do today?” “Where are we going today?”

In those years there was only one of her, we went and did all the fun playdates with friends. My husband and I would set her down and try to explain that life is not one big party.

Life is compiled of a lot of ordinary moments. That joy and laughter are gifts we can nurture and it doesn’t have to cost a lot of money.

We don’t have to travel to a warmer, less humid, more tropical part of the world to experience joy.

I used to often wonder, why is it so difficult for some of us to find joy in simple seemingly insignificant, mundane every day moments.

I don’t often wonder that anymore as the more I live the more that I see, we compare our lives so much to others.

Some of us gauge how good of a day we are having based on what someone else is doing.

If someone is on vacation having an amazing time and I’m “stuck” at home washing dishes and changing dirty diapers their life appears to be so much better than mine.

Sister, this just isn’t the truth.

For most of us, we can’t just pick up and go on vacation, and many times after months of plan we might still not be able to travel very far from home.

I want to invite you on a journey of enjoying the simple mundane moments and adding more beauty into our everyday lives.

The truth is these vacations we are sometimes able to take are so fun and such a gift, but they do not tell the whole story, they are not “real life”, they are a break from our everyday lives.

The everyday ordinary moments that make up the whole of our lives are truly such a gift. I want us to see through a different lens.

It all begins with abiding.

Abide in me:

Abide in me and I will abide in you.

“In Hebrew, the word “abide” is most often translated from the root יָשַׁב (yashab), which means to sit, to dwell, or to remain. It can also be translated from שָׁכַן (shakan), which means to settle down, dwell, or abide, and sometimes לוּן (luwn), which means to lodge or pass the night. These words emphasize a sense of permanence, remaining in a place, or continuing in a state or relationship.”

In John 15, the word that is used is yashab, to sit, to dwell or to remain.

If we remain in the vine, stay, dwell there with Father, than wherever He takes us, whatever we do in Him, is a gift of being in the Vine.

Then whether we are able to travel or to need to stay we can still experience Gods presence.

His joy.

In fact in John 15:9-11 these scriptures promise that as Father God has loved Christ so Christ loves us, and that if we abide in Gods love and keep His commandments His love will abide in us.

He tells us the reason why He is telling us this is because He wants His JOY to remain with us, and if His Joy remains with us, our joy will be full, (complete, lacking in nothing.)

Begin with Rest:

The act of being still, of not striving, begins with rest. Rest is a powerful weapon in the hand of the believer.

I didn’t always see it this way. Always pushing my body. Always telling myself, “there is a lot of work that needs to be done, there is no time for resting.”

Do you ever get to the end of your day and feel like everything you wanted to get done was accomplished?

I rarely do.

Because I am often asking The Lord what Faithfulness looks like today, I do not experience the guilt and shame I used to because I couldn’t keep up with all the tasks.

I want us to make a priority of asking The Lord what He finds most important.

When we do this we can breathe more easily and are filled with peace and joy because we did what Father asked of us.

He knows what needs to be done. He knows the cares we carry.

Lets place them in His hands and trust Him to help us to accomplish what He has set out for us to do.

Whether that be homeschooling our children, helping them with math facts, driving lessons, carrying for elderly parents, or littles with special needs, cooking the next meal, doing the loads of laundry.

Having the uncomfortable conversation with your co-worker.

The Lord does not want us bogged down and overwhelmed by all we have to do.

Always thinking we have to escape our lives in order to experience lasting peace and rest.

Joy is present now, even as you might be sitting in piles of laundry and a sink full of dishes.

Begin to speak blessing over the dishes and the laundry, the meals we cook, the children we drive to activities.

If The Lord has called us to do it, let us call what He has called blessed and trust Him with the rest.

Now, this begs a very important question, what happens if God didn’t call you do that extra activity you signed up for, what should you do?

Sister, I want to invite you to sit with The Lord and ask Him.

Many of us are gearing up for the beginning of the school year.

Lets invite The Lord in, lets ask Him what He sees for the year.

Lets not come to Him with our plans and our agendas and ask Him to bless them, but lets sit with Him and ask Him what plans He has for us.

Every time I do this, my heart experiences so much joy and peace. Many times He shows me I have overcommitted myself.

In seasons where I wanted out but I knew He had us there, He provided the rest I needed and I did my best to not kick and scream the whole time.

Remember when I had to visit the chiropractor multiple times a week for months. That was such a difficult time, not only was it extremely painful on my body driving 30 minutes there and 30 minutes back home, it was time consuming, disruptive of our everyday, it felt awful.

My body needed help, so I obeyed and trusted He would provide for my family. Months later, I am so thankful my mobility has returned.

I am still cautious to not overwhelm my days and I rest as I feel my body telling me to.

How to prioritize rest:

To help me not overwhelm my schedule and days, I create a list of the things which are priorities.

I keep this running list on my phone. If I don’t get to it the day of, or even the week I set out to do it, I move it to the next.

Caring for my little girls, the needs of my teens, is at the top of that list.

In this last season my husband had to travel a lot for work so by the end of the day I was more wiped out than usual.

I wanted to sit down and work on the blog, or to wake up before everyone to get more things done, but you know what I did instead?

I rested.

Rest doesn’t always look like sleep, but in this season of walking through grief it has.

We have to learn to honor the bodies God has given us. We have one body sister. Gods Holy Temple.

Lets make it our hearts desire to remain rooted in Him.

Simple Joys:

One of the simple ways I add more joy into my life is that I surround myself with flowers.

Lots of flowers.

I love beauty.

When there is nothing but piles of laundry and sticky floors it is hard for me to see beauty in this.

I have learned to give thanks nonetheless.

But bringing flowers in helps the mundane moments somehow seem more beautiful, because they are beautiful.

Simple, sacred moments. We are not wasting our lives sister. Yes, even laundry is Holy work when placed in the hands of Our Father.

yessi argabright

So I gather lovely pitchers and mason jars, old ceramic cups and I cut fresh flowers from our garden.

When the flowers begin to wilt I excitedly begin to plan the next dry floral arrangement.

The truth is winter seasons are difficult for many of us. It is mostly dry and barren. All is not dead but dormant.

Resting.

For the time they will grow and shine again.

To help me through the gloomy moments I fill my home with beauty, God’s beauty.

Lovely taper candles with bronze candle sticks.

Purchased from my local thrift and vintage stores.

How to make your own dry floral arrangement:

You can add faux flowers as well, to give it more dimension and a variation of flowers you might not find locally.

How to dry flowers:

You want to first let them thoroughly dry.

In this short video you’ll see how I sometimes take mine straight from the water into the vase.

I do this for my roses I cut in our garden.

For the roses you purchase from the store, long stem, let them thoroughly dry for a few weeks in a cool, dark, dry room.

You can also gather feather like “weeds” from your yard. After I sprayed mine with a vinegar, salt, soap solution outside they dried so beautifully I didn’t even recognize them.

I was about to toss out the pile of weeds when I took a closer look and realized I would have paid about $20 for them at our local Hobby Lobby.

Once I have all the flowers and leaves I want,

1. Arrange the leaves first.
2. Slowly arrange the roses, flowers, some can be taller and fuller than others.
3. Stand back and enjoy the beauty you have created.

In closing:

Bringing more joy into our simple everyday lives doesn’t have to cost a lot.

I want you to invite The Lord into the creative process. Include Him when you go out to forage for flowers, branches and leaves.

I am so excited to continue to learn about the many roses we have here.

They are simple elegance.

With all the rain we’ve had and the back injury that kept me in bed and away from the flower beds, caused a sickness to grow on many of them.

Imagine my sadness, the beauties that bring me so much joy, riddled with disease. I am so thankful for the help of a dear friend as I cried out to The Lord for help.

Months later I am still dealing with some of this.

I’ve cut them back multiple times to keep the disease at bay and when my back was all better I dug up all the leaves that were maintaining the additional moisture at the base of our roses.

Allowing them to more fully breathe.

Sister, when we overfill our schedules, it is like the leaves that continue to retain the moisture in at the base of the roses, instead of providing nourishment and protection like they would in the winter, they choke out the life and air and create a perfect opportunity for sickness to thrive.

I am praying for us. That we will be women who incline our ears unto The Lord. That we will not hold on so tightly to our plans and our schedules.

May we surrender before Father, and trust that He is bringing beauty out of and into our everyday lives.

I am so thankful you’re here. I pray this weeks blog post was a blessing to you, to tell you the truth, I had no idea what I was going to write on today.

But as I sat with Father He made it abundantly clear, Joy in simple ordinary places.

Because this is where He meets us. Again and again and again.

We do not have to escape our lives, find a quiet place to reset, yes, meet with Father in stillness, yes.

Please do not fall for the lie that true rest and joy, and rejuvenation can only be experienced on soft sandy beaches, that is just not the truth.

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Blessings and love in Christ.

Here is a sweet and lovely video of some of our favorite instrumentals we listen to almost daily.