by Beth Duewel and Rhonda Rhea in Leading Hearts Magazine
Does your happy ever need a reno?
All of us can sometimes put our happy spaces in weird places. People get caught up, for instance, in the thread count of their sheets. Thread count. If it’s not Egyptian cotton in a thread count impressive enough to require a greater number of stacks of cash in the bank than the count of the threads in the sheets, suddenly that bed is just not a happy place. It’s all about the thread count. The math is not uncomplicated.
The two of us, Beth and Rhonda, maintain that everyone is getting a little too caught up in the thread count, when shouldn’t the crumb count be a bigger deal? We were talking about it the other day and discovered that we don’t really like the idea of snacking in bed—mostly because we don’t like the idea of sheets that are too…how can we put it…exfoliat-ey. But then later we decided the fact that we’re not bed-snackers might actually be more about the other fact that neither of our husbands are big into exfoliation either.
Just so you know that neither of us are legalistic about the topic, everything changes on the sofa.
Pick a home. Rhonda or Beth. Doesn’t matter. Because when it comes to either one of those sofas, a little lean to the left or the right and, let the exfoliation begin.
We don’t’ really mean to be this way. Neither of us is even sure what kind of crumbs are stuffed between the cushions of our respective couches. But wouldn’t it be interesting if we pooled our sofas, as it were, turned them upside down, and gave them each a good shake. Think it would make a casserole of some kind? A “crumb cake,” perhaps? One more pin for the Pinterest board, right? Double-DIY that!
Reclaiming our happy space in life does not have to be this kind of complicated. Or crummy. Or crumb-y. We lean just one way. Into/on Christ. We allow Him to do in us what we’re powerless to do for ourselves.
There’s a wonderful paraphrase of Colossians 2:6-7.
“And now just as you trusted Christ to save you, trust him, too, for each day’s problems; live in vital union with him. Let your roots grow down into him and draw up nourishment from him. See that you go on growing in the Lord, and become strong and vigorous in the truth you were taught. Let your lives overflow with joy and thanksgiving for all he has done” (TLB).
A giddy, bubbly happy all the time kind of joy?
A grin that’s perpetually on fleek? Not sure that should ever be our goal. But joy in Jesus, our Bread of Life? Oh yes. It’s the happy that goes deep and influences every part of our being, no matter what’s happening around us.
Life-happy is not a DIY. It’s never about becoming a fix-yourself-upper. It’s ever and always about allowing the Lord, who renovates and reclaims so perfectly, to do a makeover from the inside out. He can take our crummy “before” and reveal a glorious, God-empowered “happily ever after.”
It’s good for us to be reminded often that we have a choice. We can choose to trust our God of joy and to depend on Him to renovate our happy. Or we can choose to squirm and balk and wriggle out of the work He wants to do in us. Let’s face it. Some days we’ll choose well. Other days? They’re going to be rough. Cracker-crumb-bed-sheets kind of rough.
Our God gives grace. For the good days and the rough ones.
Life is full of every kind of happy at that place of grace. It’s a place where we rest in His presence. Ahhhh, it’s the sweetest rest. It’s there that the happiest space is ours again. Reclaimed.
The psalmist said, “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence, there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forever” (Psalm 16:11 ESV). Happy space? It’s in His presence. It’s a happy-glow that lights up life right there.
O Lord, we praise You and thank You that You are our God of all joy and that Your presence changes everything! May we fully rest in You and glow with a new happy. Every day. Because You are the one who reclaims.
By the way, could we add here that it’s not a glow that happens because you sat on either one of our couch-foliators. No, it’s more of a soul glow. And that really is the happiest of spaces.
