Did you know that you can have joy right now regardless of your circumstances? Every moment of every day, there’s a variety of feelings for you to choose from. Where your focus goes, your mood flows. You can focus on the outer world and all of its devastations, as described in my prayer for America, or you can choose the joy of the Lord by focusing on the word of God, the will of God, and the promises of God. This Biblical devotional will share how to choose the joy of the Lord over the devastation of the world. I also created for you a scripture-based affirmation “I am joyful.” y heart’s desire is to encourage and empower you and to remind you about the source of all joy in God’s world.

Introduction

There was a period in my life where joy seemed impossible. Unbearable pain and indescribable suffering were inflicted on me by the person who was supposed to love and protect me: my husband. I lived with the enemy, and I surrendered my joy to him without even noticing it. I described my journey from hopeful and joyful to devastated and desperate in an essay called “How Satan Came at Me Looking Saint.” I some point, I assessed my situation and saw the truth.

The best I can describe it is by sharing how I visualize emotions and feelings. There’s a tray with a wide variety of options for how you may choose to feel. You have the power to choose whichever feeling you want. On the tray, offered to you are such feelings as misery, anger, bitterness, resentment, frustration, fear, indifference, passion, doubt, confidence, rage, jealousy, anxiety, hatred, love, curiosity, contentment, gratitude, patience, self-control, peace, and joy. 

I had to ask myself: “Anna, which one do you choose as your habitual everyday feeling? Imagine the future and the quality of your life if you were to choose joy every day!” And I did. Now, joy is very different than toxic positivity or maniac jolliness. Joy comes from knowing God and trusting His eternal promises. It’s fulfilling and not empty as happiness, it’s lasting and steadfast, not short-lived and temporary like happiness. Joy isn’t a make-believe pretense. It is a faith-based choice in regards to the focus of your mind and the condition of your heart. Happiness depends on external circumstances but the foundation of genuine joy is your intimate relationship with Jesus.

Let me tell you more about that time not long ago when I had no idea how my decision regarding what to choose to feel every day impacted my health, life, and future. I’m going to share with you about my suicidal depression. If you want to understand more about my life and background, read my autobiography called “Getting To Know Anna Szabo.” There, you will learn about the circumstances that led to my depression, devastation, and despair, which almost ended my life.

Suicidal Depression vs the Joy of the Lord

I remember how unnoticeable my negative feelings of doubt, dissatisfaction, jealousy, and anger were to me after my husband of just a few days started rejecting me. Here’s our wedding video and here’s my story of rejection. Michel showed me that he prioritized his IronMan hobby over our marriage.

He told me that his IronMan bicycle was his “other wife.” He admitted that he cheated on me. I felt so hurt, my heart was shattered into thousands of microscopic pieces, and my psyche split just to be able to cope with the multiple realities where Michel was pulling me in and out as described in my essay called “What Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Do to Your Psyche.” I wanted to be graceful, patient, forgiving, and loving. But I justified feeling angry, bitter, resentful, and victimized by focusing on Michel’s faults and failures in our marriage. 

I didn’t realize that my daily choices of my habitual feeling impacted my health, quality of life, and future. I failed to notice how quickly I was becoming who I didn’t want to be, all because I focused on Michel more than I focused on God.

What I chose to feel on a daily basis was shaping my future, but I didn’t pay much attention initially. “All of a sudden,” I found myself in bed, without any energy, indifferent, and sick, falling a victim to severe suicidal depression as the result of narcissistic relationship abuse. Why quotations? Because I didn’t become suicidally depressed all of a sudden. There was arad that led to the point of depression. I traveled that road, in that specific direction, one step at a time, day after day. I became suicidally depressed because of my everyday choices regarding where to place my focus and how to feel. My consistently wrong feeling choices had such a negative impact on my health only because negative feelings became habitual for me. At the time, I didn’t know it, so my suicidal depression felt sudden to me. And I sacrificed my joy.

Where Joy Comes From

In my mind, I couldn’t be joyful when my husband was cheating, lying, overspending, and dishonoring our marriage as described in my essay “Narcissistic Abuse Examples.” I subconsciously thought that my joy was dependent on how Michel treated me. Giving Michel all the power to influence my feelings daily led to my learned powerlessness and helplessness. Soon, helplessness led to hopelessness, and the result of hopelessness was my suicidal depression. Was Michel actually in charge of my hope, peace, and joy? No.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Romans 15:13

Reading this scripture, I finally realized where joy was supposed to come from. I unintentionally misplaced the source of my hope and joy. I somehow started drawing my hope from Michel’s behaviors toward me, our failed marriage, and his abusive actions. My hope was placed in Michel instead of “the God of hope” as Romans 15:13 suggests.

God’s Healing and the Joy of the Lord

I realized why I had no joy. I saw how my easily-justified negative feelings became habitual and got me to where I was: depressed and suicidal. I took responsibility for misplacing my source of hope and joy. I accepted the liability for giving away my power. That helped me feel empowered again. I wanted to be helped and healed. I wanted to choose to feel hopeful and joyful every day. What was my first step out of depression toward joy? To reach out for God’s healing and joy.

The Lord is my strength and my shield; in him my heart trusts, and I am helped; my heart exults, and with my song I give thanks to him.

Psalm 28:7

Based on this verse, I created a plan of action.

Depression Healing Action Plan

1. Draw strength from Christ 
2. Trust in the Lord
3. Praise God
4. Be thankful 

I placed Philippians 4:13 in my bedroom to be the first thing I saw in the morning. I began drawing my strength from Christ. I started developing a habit of trusting in the Lord. It required my complete surrender to the truth: God has a plan for me and He is guiding my walk, His plan is good, and He will work all things together for good. No matter the circumstances, I can have joy based on my hope in Christ and faith in God. Getting to know the Lord helped me trust in Him.

I discovered that God gave us over 3573 promises in the Bible! As I began to study His promises, trusting Him and leaning on him for my joy became easier and easier because I saw that God actually never failed me. That breakthrough realization reassured my confidence that God won’t ever fail me. I had my history with Him and His promises to validate my comforting breakthrough conclusion. 

I realized that trusting my emotions to define my feelings, behaviors, and actions was foolish. I noticed how easily and quickly my emotions were influenced by external circumstances. I had another breakthrough: my subjective and ever-changing emotions are not a reliable source of information for daily decision-making, but God’s promises are objective, solid, and reliable. That breakthrough led to the birth of my favorite poem called “Standing on God’s Promises.”

After I got in the habit of trusting in the Lord, my next step was to develop the habit of praising Him out of gratitude. I started looking for things I could be grateful for, and just that one desire led to the overflow of gratitude in my heart. You can read and listen to my annual Thanksgiving Journal here. I got in the habit of writing at least a page of grateful thoughts in my gratitude journal every day. Practicing gratitude changed my attitude, and my gratitude poem was born.

"Gratitude" 

 Life is an incredible journey of growth and learning.
 Having realized it, I begin with gratitude every morning. 
 
 Giving thanks for all my blessings is very healing.
 This one habit changed completely the way I’m feeling. 
 
 The fear I used to experience was replaced with calmness.
 The anger I used to feel was replaced with warmness.
 
 The depression I was suffering from was replaced with joy
 As my mind to its full capacity I’ve learned to deploy. 
 
 When my mind is filled with gratitude, I can’t feel fear.
 Thoughts of gratitude prevent anxiety and keep my mind clear.
 
 Dwelling on my blessings leads me to experiencing genuine joy.
 Practicing gratitude every day, I can finally my life enjoy. 
 
 
 5/5/18 © Anna Szabo, JD, MBA

From Suicidal Depression to the Joy of The Lord

The four-step action-plan I shared with you above led me out of depression toward joy. I realized that the power to choose how to feel every day is mine! And I am not talking here about disregarding your humanity. I am all for being fully human and feeling all human emotions. What I’m emphasizing here is a habitual feeling, the mood that results from your daily mental focus. Worshiping the Lord for all His goodness filled my heart with gratitude.

Gratitude changed my attitude.

I wrote over 200 Biblical poems from my actual conversations with God during that season. They became my joyful songs,” which Psalm 100:2 promises to diligent believers.

Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs.

Psalm 100:2

I did what this scripture recommends. I prioritized worshipping God over worshipping Michel. My daily habit became to focus on God’s goodness wholeheartedly and tenaciously. One of the “joyful songs” I wrote is called “God, I praise you!” Here it is for you.

"God, I Praise You" #PoemsFromGod

God, I praise you with my words and thoughts.
Glory to you for all your goodness! 
I'm in awe to see blessings lots!
I reach out to you for life's fullness.

Satisfaction comes from finding grace.
You reveal the path in the Bible. 
For your truth and wisdom I shout praise!
I worship you, experiencing clarity revival.

God, I praise you for the good and the bad.
For all my trials and tribulations. 
I praise you when happy and when I'm sad,
For both my accomplishments and frustrations. 
 
I praise you at night and when I'm eating,
When driving or walking or going to bed,
When cleaning, cooking, and when I'm reading,
And in the morning - for the day ahead.

I praise you, God, it's my act of worship.
I feel your love and I'm soaking in it.
Getting to know you is like courtship:
The closer you draw me, the more I commit. 


7/29/17 © Anna Szabo, JD, MBA

 

Remember though that my circumstances at the time were not any different than they were before my breakthrough realization and focus-related decisions. Michel was still disregarding me and dishonoring our marriage. The only thing that changed was my source of joy, on which I focused with my mind. It was that one decision… and it changed everything: my health, my quality of life, and my future.

The decision to take charge of my daily feelings resulted in my suicidal depression recovery. God called me to establish this Christian ministry for women, which is committed to helping alleviate suicide among women globally by sharing hope in Christ and focuses on the six pillars of joyful living: faith, food, fitness, finances, felicity, and fortitude. Praising God for His goodness instead of concentrating on Michel’s failures in our marriage changed everything for me.

"God, I Praise You" #PoemsFromGod

God, I praise you with my words and thoughts.
Glory to you for all your goodness! 
I'm in awe to see blessings lots!
I reach out to you for life's fullness.

Satisfaction comes from finding grace.
You reveal the path in the Bible. 
For your truth and wisdom I shout praise!
I worship you, experiencing clarity revival.

God, I praise you for the good and the bad.
For all my trials and tribulations. 
I praise you when happy and when I'm sad,
For both my accomplishments and frustrations. 
 
I praise you at night and when I'm eating,
When driving or walking or going to bed,
When cleaning, cooking, and when I'm reading,
And in the morning - for the day ahead.

I praise you, God, it's my act of worship.
I feel your love and I'm soaking in it.
Getting to know you is like courtship:
The closer you draw me, the more I commit. 


7/29/17 © Anna Szabo, JD, MBA

Today, I am joyful. My life isn’t perfect.

I have challenges to solve and obstacles to overcome. But my focus is right: I focus on the Lord, and that’s why I have the joy of the Lord. My external circumstances are outside of my control. Michel and I are divorced. On the contrary, my internal joy, which is the condition of my heart, is definitely within my control because it’s determined by my own mind’s focus. I focus on God and Jesus.

Here’s the living room in my new home where after our divorce I get to experience profound joy and sacred peace, which passes all understanding. God’s word, will, promises, and also knowing Him, having a personal and intimate relationship with Him are all in the very foundation of my joy. Below is a poem I wrote about joy.

After our divorce, God called me to serve Him.

I started a Christian podcast for women that’s been now downloaded tens of thousands of times globally. I’ve produced over one million words of helpful content on this Christian blog, and it’s being read in 198 countries worldwide. I’ve provided Christian coaching to encourage and empower women. And I’ve created art, as well as poetry, all with one goal: to serve God and to share the joy that comes when we embrace His word instead of the world. God has revealed my unique strengths to me and showed me His anointing. Doing the good work He prepared in advance for me to do and walking in my purpose gives me joy.

This is a story for God’s glory!

"Joy" 
 
Joy is a feeling different than the feeling of happiness.
Happiness is temporary and is driven by external circumstances.
Joy is internal and is not defined by either power or helplessness.
Joy does not depend on our luck, health, career, love, or finances.
 
Joy is a mental and emotional state of complete contentment.
It’s a consistent acceptance of what is and what is to come. 
Joy exists in the heart and mind that are free of resentment.Joy brings our whole being back to life from being dead or numb.  


 9/19/18 © Anna Szabo, JD, MBA

“I Am Joyful” Affirmation

Are you aware of what your habitual everyday primary feeling is right now? What would be different in your life and about your future if you decided to choose joy every day? 

If God is the source of your joy and if you believe that God of hope can fill your heart with joy no matter the external circumstances, memorize the Biblical affirmation I created for you below and practice it daily to remember where joy comes from.

May you be blessed and healed by my affirmation!

May God set your heart on fire for Him and fuel you with His sacred joy! May He reveal His anointing and make His purpose for you known. May He show you how to deploy your strengths to glorify Him. May you experience profound, quiet, lasting joy!

I am Joyful #52Devotionals

The God of hope fills my heart with joy. 
I am giving Him all the glory and thanks. 
With gladness I serve the Lord and my every effort deploy. 
I praise Him for blessing me with my many strengths.