Today marks the last day of 2010 and our final list of 100 joys.  It has been a wonderful diversion for a usually overwhelmingly hectic month.   I honestly was afraid I wouldn’t be able to find so many, yet now I am finding Joy everywhere I look.  As I drive down the road, being tempted to complain and grumble about the traffic, I silently look for the joy to be found.  It is there when the driver in the car next to me thanks me with a wave and a smile for letting them pull in front of me.  Sometimes joy is extended when it is offered first!  Have you found Joy?  Won’t you share a few you’ve found with us?

Here are our remaining joys…

85.  Stewed Blackberries over hot buttered biscuits.
86.  Grace – unmerited and free.
87.  Candlelit dinners
88.  History – watching a movie that tells a story I didn’t know before.
89.  STORY – noticing the way God is writing MY story, and thinking of the many stories of people I pass everyday that only HE knows.  We all have story – what’s yours?

90.  Finishing three months of medication for vertigo and realizing how much it had affected my emotions.  Joy in feeling myself again!
91.  Seeing the word JOY everywhere I go and realizing I am changing because I noticed!

92.  Route 66 Club – A group of friends from my church who travel this Ancient Road together.  What a joy it has been to hear their view, motivating me to keep “traveling” (reading) the 66 books of the Bible.
93.  The first day of a long weekend together.
94.  Reading a new book to my three year old granddaughter about a mouse who writes stories!  Thank you, Starbucks for creating such a cute mouse named, Huxley.

95.  Finding the perfect Christmas ornaments for each of our children to represent 2010, and anticipating our special dinner when we will give them to them this weekend.  🙂
96.  Reading the last chapter in the Old and New Testament.  Thus closing out another year of God faithfully leading me through His Word.
97.  Wagon rides around the block.
98.  Blue skies after several dreary, cold days.
99.  The quiet calm in our home after everyone has gone to sleep.

100.  The comfortable place in marriage where Tom knows the worst of me, and I of him, yet our love grows ever stronger.  Not because of us, but because of Christ, who for the JOY set before Him, endured the Cross despising the shame and has sat down at the right hand of the Father.  This is the root of all joy, in life – in marriage, and it’s Indescribable!

We had the privilege of hearing Josh Wilson this month at our church’s 25th Anniversary Christmas Celebration.  To close our segment on Joy, we thought it VERY appropriate to leave you with a song of hope, help and most of all JOY, titled, “Before The Morning!”  Happy New Year – we will return to our normal posts on Monday.