Choosing Joy when life is sucky: the story behind my new tattoo! (Kinda)

Today was one of the better days I've had in Colorado. The last few LT talks have been a little hard to handle: first the "night of confession," then a discussion on being refined and strengthened through trials. Naturally, all this has gotten me thinking more about my own trials and how many of them were unexpected this summer.

But during the "night of confession," I made friends with a girl I probably never would have gotten to meet had we not gone up on stage and confessed our feelings about an ugly, awful thing that happened to us that we have in common. I got to meet with her today, and then finally caught a shuttle into town to one of my favorite coffee shops in Estes Park, where another friend happened to be. I finally got some of the alone time I've been craving for weeks -- not to mention great coffee. And coffee makes everything better :-D

My life group has been dubbed the "hardcore" life group because of our impromptu decision to drive to Boulder last week and get tattoos (not matching tattoos, though. We're not cult-ish). While the decision to get them together was a little impulsive, my decision about what I wanted was not. I came up with the idea about a month or so ago, and it was oddly inspired by one of the biggest mistakes I've ever made. LT has challenged me to think of how God can make the worst of our choices and experiences work for our benefit...and while it sucks to suffer from the consequences of bad choices, God made sure I met up with some truly amazing people to demonstrate what grace looks like.

I have been learning that happiness is not my goal in life, but joy is. And the difference between the two is that happiness is fleeting and dependent on feelings, whereas joy is a deep-seated state of being that has nothing to do with circumstances. Joy is an actual choice, one I will be reminded to make every time I see this:

...and I'll be reminded of the suffering I endured to get it. And if I can endure that, pffft, I can handle anything!

(This was when the tattoo guy called me a drama queen. You'd think he'd never seen a girl afraid of needles before!)

And the actual tattooing process itself...I think I'm done after this one. I know I said that after the first tattoo, because as my mom said when I told her, "You don't need a tattoo for EVERY major revelation in your life, you know." And as Sam put it so eloquently: "I love tattoos, but getting them makes me feel like a masochist." Now I understand what she means!