All the Feels: Take Charge of Your Feelings (Instead of the Other Way Around)Sample

Finding Joy in Imperfection 

I can’t tell you how many times my happy train has been derailed by One Bad Thing—one kind-of-stupid, shouldn’t-be-earth-shattering thing. The day may be going swimmingly, my expectations are high, and bam. One snippy word, one off-kilter interaction, one awkward exchange, and down starts the spiral. It’s like a nail in the tire of my joy ride, leaking the happy out till the car sits lopsided on the side of the road. Down goes the day. 

If you’re an idealist like I am, you know what I mean. It only takes one thing to set us off. A single thing goes awry, and we struggle to let it go. The whole conversation, the whole day, the whole vacation—even our whole life, if we are having a particularly dramatic moment—is now ruined. Or if not ruined, it’s at least cast in shadow. No wonder we look at our peppy, carefree friends with envy and awe: How do they do it? How do they stay joyful in the face of imperfection? 

These next words have come after years—decades, actually—of pillow pounding and prayer wrestling. I do not write them lightly, because they aren’t easy to accept, and they are even more difficult to put into practice. But here’s the truth: we must learn to be happy even when we are sad. Even when our life, our day, our relationships, and even our own hearts, are imperfect. 

We all have unconscious “rules for happiness” in the back of our minds: 

I can’t be happy unless my boyfriend/spouse/best friend/child is happy. 

I can’t be happy until I’m married.

I can’t be happy until I have a baby.

I can’t be happy until I’m out of debt. 

I can’t be happy until my child comes back to God. 

If we want to claim joy in the midst of this messy life, we have to rewrite our own rules for happiness, the rules by which we limit ourselves (not to mention God). If you search your heart, you may find that you unconsciously adhere to some happiness rules that sound something like this:

I can finally be happy when . . . 

Life will be peaceful when . . . 

My life will be good when . . . 

But what if the when you’re waiting for never comes? Will you postpone joy indefinitely? What if you rewrote your rules for happiness like this:

I can be joyful even though . . . 

God can give me peace even while . . . 

My life is already good in spite of . . . 

We have to stop waiting for perfect before we allow ourselves to be happy. If we wait for a perfect day to be happy, we may never experience another happy day in life!

Scripture gives us another alternative: to embrace a kind of joy that defies our circumstances.

Though the fig tree does not bud

and there are no grapes on the vines,

though the olive crop fails

and the fields produce no food,

though there are no sheep in the pen

and no cattle in the stalls,

yet I will rejoice in the Lord,

I will be joyful in God my Savior. 

Habakkuk 3:17-18 (niv)