Happiness

   "Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the Lord God is my strength and my song, and He has become my salvation." Isaiah 12:2

  "Lord, I long to know and experience happiness in my life. I'm not talking about shallow pleasures. Those come and go, and the wrong kind leave us empty and unfulfilled. The happiness I desire is so much more than skin deep. It's bigger than my circumstances and larger than my emotions. I want the kind of happiness that trusts you, obeys you and follows you regardless of where that path leads. Amen." www.biblestudytools.com

  A friend asked a tough question. "Are you happy?" 

  To be fair, it's only been a couple of months since we laid my step Dad to rest and I am still reeling from everything that transpired surrounding his passing. The five stages of grief swirl, wrapping my heart in chaotic and often conflicting emotions.

  I had to think about it for a bit before telling her I was content. 

  That was a couple of weeks ago. Since then, the question has been rolling around in my head. What does it actually mean to be happy?

  I sadly have come to realize being happy is dangerous territory. That's when the rug gets pulled out from under you. Tattered shards of joy twist themselves around your heart and squeeze the life out of it. And it hurts. A lot. 

  There was a long, tear filled pause after I wrote those last sentences. Sometimes the hurts leave scars that never seem to heal completely.

  But that's life with a narcissist. Another's happiness is like poison to them and must be destroyed at all costs because it magnifies their own unhappiness. All they can do is snuff out the joy by pulling the rug as far and as fast as they can. 

  It does me good to be reminded that narcissists are trapped by evil and as a result are tortured souls who only know how to destroy. That's when they feel most powerful.

  It doesn't absolve them of their choices. Choices have consequences.

  And the devil would like nothing more than for me to continue to be afraid to be happy.

  Because happiness is the offspring of hope and dreams. Happiness is being able to acknowledge a great deal of my life has been really crappy but that doesn't mean it will continue to be this way. 

  You know something? The crap keeps me running to Jesus.

  Perhaps I need to seek Your forgiveness, Lord, for looking to people for my own happiness instead of You...no...that's not right. We are wired to need human connections. It starts with the deepest intimacy of all: in our mother's womb.

  Perhaps, instead of repenting, I need to make the choice to forgive. Or at least, try to forgive the people in my life who took the joy found through connection and weaponized it. That would be my mom, my ex, the abusers, and one whom I called friend.

   Doing this makes me happy because choices have consequences, don't they?