Making Room for Joy

A 2024 Manifesto

Hi Friends,

I started reflecting on this year and envisioning the year I would like to have for 2024. And two words came to mind: MORE JOY!

I want to create more moments of Joy. 

I want to live in the fullness of Joy.

I want to surround myself with people who exude Joy. 

I want to lose myself in the presence and dimples of my daughter, Artist Joy.

I am tired of healing. In fact, life is not meant for us to be in a perpetual state of healing. I spent the majority of my adult life here. 

Healing from trauma. 

Healing from anxiety. 

Healing from rejection. 

Healing from suffering.

Healing from loss.

Healing my body.

Healing my mind.

I. AM. TIRED. 

By no means am I saying that we must deny our pain. There is so much for us to lament about. Healing will always be necessary, but it doesn't have to be the veil in which we hide behind. We know pain. We are born wailing. We are born needing comfort, love, and safety. 

It’s ok for our pain to co-exist with Joy. We don’t have to make our pain beautiful for us to be free.

I've come to resolve that I may not ever be free from my pain (It's up to God to decide!). That some things are just is. And maybe it's not the healing God wants me to focus on, but perhaps the Joy I can possess despite it. The peace that The Bible talks about which surpasses all understanding. (Philippians 4:7)

As writer Sarah Bassey says, "Life and death and suffering and sorrow still come to us all; no one escapes being a person in this world."

But joy.

A place, I believe, where God dwells, where we experience more of Him. His image. His love. His purpose.

4 Restore our fortunes, LORD, like streams in the Negev.

5 Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of Joy.

6 Those who go out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of Joy, carrying sheaves with them. (Psalm 126)

It's an invitation for us to find Joy in our suffering.

To walk beside the still waters, where He promises to restore our soul. Jesus, be the center of my Joy.

I don’t know what 2024 holds for me, and after an intense 2023, I will be honest to say I am anxious bout the possibilities.

But what I want more than anything is more joyful moments.

To live between glory to glory, strength to strength, and joy to joy.

My plan is to look back on this newsletter a year from today, and gladly say I’ve masterered that. The Joy of The Lord is my strength.

Cheers to a year of more Joy, 2024. A Joy that God gives, and the world can’t take.

Sincerely,

Ashley Joy

Pieces of joy I experienced this week:

Los Angeles, California - December 21-27, 2023.

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