In an effort to be totally authentic with all of you, I thought I would start a weekly post called “Thursday’s Thoughts.” I warn you ahead of time – this post will probably have nothing to do with couponing, freebies, frugality or saving money. So, if you only come to my site for those things, feel free to pass by this post and I promise my feelings will not be hurt!  🙂

If you do choose to stick around, I am going to warn you that I am not an amazing writer and that my thoughts are not the most profound. But I am a human being who spends hours each day typing for all of you on Addicted to Saving and I wanted to share a bit more of myself with you.

So that said, my theme for today’s Thursday’s Thoughts is Choosing Joy. What is your definition of joy? Stop and think about it for a minute. If you asked me what my definition of joy was ten years ago, I would have said that joy equaled happiness – both an internal feeling and an external exuded emotion. My definition has changed. With years and personal growth (when I refer to personal growth I am basically saying “crappy trials I’ve had to go through”), I can now tell you that for me, joy doesn’t necessarily equal happiness but instead equals contentment. Being content with my current circumstances, and even my past and future circumstances. Contentment and joy never went hand in hand for me before, but they do now.

And that leads me to introduce you to the blog Glitzen Girl.  Glitzen Girl is written by Sara Frankl. And, you know how I said above that I am not an amazing writer? Well, I find Sara’s writing to be amazing. She is young – just a few years older than me. She loves her dog – dotes on her dog – just like I do with my dog. (Seriously – I think people question my sanity when they see my affection towards my dog.) She is witty and seems to have a sarcastic side to her – I may not be the wittiest but I find I’m sarcastic quite often. She loves God and knows God loves her – I strive to have her unfailing faith and feel secure in the fact that I am a child of God. She lost her father and suffered extreme grief – I too experienced a similar heartache. And that is where our similarities end. You see, Sara Frankl has a disease called Ankylosing Spondylitis.  This disease causes scar tissue to form and fuses your joints together. This disease not only causes Sara such intense pain that taking one step is a huge effort, but it has also weakened her immune system and her lungs’ functionality to the point that the air from outside her home is harmful for her. What does this mean for her? She has been homebound, locked in her own home, for years. She can’t leave her house, open a window, go out to dinner with friends, have friends over if they have the sniffles, and her dog can’t go outside because the air and allergens that it will bring back into her home is enough to weaken her and bring on pneumonia.

Can I tell you something? Despite the pain Sara feels, despite not being able to feel the fresh air from outside for years now, despite missing her father’s funeral because she couldn’t leave her house and be exposed to the air outside, Sara has joy. Her blog and her articles exude joy. She is blatantly honest about the bad days where she was too weak to type, or when the pain was so intense that she couldn’t exert the energy to type just a few letters on her laptop, or when she was suffering the grief of losing her dad unexpectedly. But through this, she remained joyful. Sara’s faith in God and that He held a plan for her despite her circumstances, gave her contentment through circumstances which would have rocked my world. And I thought my life has been rough. Sara’s story continues.  As the years have gone by, her body has weakened to the point where hospice has told her that her days, if not hours are limited. She is no longer blogging – instead some of her friends have utilized her blog as a message board for updates on Sara’s health. In fact, by the time I post this, Sara may have passed away.

I actually knew nothing about Sara or her blog until this past Thursday.  Immediately I was transfixed with her blog reading through all of her previous posts wishing that I had known of her blog earlier and wishing that I could know her and just absorb some of her joy. And it made me think – just because my life doesn’t go as planned, just because I have hopes that have been dashed and because I have experienced pain and loss, I have no business losing joy. And I have no business forgetting to Choose Joy through all things and all circumstances I encounter. My life’s story pales in comparison to this beautiful woman’s story.

Hopefully this post will encourage you through your circumstances. I know that your lives are tough – I know you all have stories and that many of you are experiencing pain – be it physical or emotion. Many of you have emailed me your stories and my heart has broken when I’ve read many of them. I challenge you to read a bit of Sara’s blog and to become inspired to choose to see some sort of “good” in all of the circumstances you are dealing with. And hopefully, through your choice of joy, you will experience a feeling of contentment.

John 16:12