Count it all joy

Anyone who has followed my blog for a while knows that I have done quite a few posts about joy in the past year and thanks to a little girl named Ivy Joy, I have learned the true meaning of joy. The kind of joy God wants us to have is not a feeling of joy. It is not an emotion or a holiday wish. It is a choice. We can choose joy every single day! Just like love. You don't feel madly in love when you are picking up stinky socks or surrendering your afternoon picnic plans because the game is on, but we can choose love every day and we are commanded to do so. I beleive God meant the same for joy. In sickness and in health, for richer or poor, there is still joy! James 1 tells us to consider hard times a gift! Pain, sorrow, stress, a gift???
I am standing firmly on allowing this -joy- to make me the woman God is shaping me to be. Sturdy, strong, well developed, forgiving, compassionate. Oh how I would love to be a woman will all of those characteristics. Like in James 1:2-4
And yet the pain, sorrow, and stress we often have to endure to grow spiritually always seem to be what make me second guess myself. Am I strong enough to choose joy? With Ivy in my life, it is so much easier to choose joy, even now. Even when things take a turn for the worse even when things go a whole different way than I expected! Ivy chooses joy every day. She has to feel like a semi truck is sitting on her chest. She feels tired all of the time. She is poked and bothered regularly. She is often hungry but tires of eating and would rather just be hungry. She knows pain and suffering more deeply than I will ever comprehend. And yet she chooses joy every single day. She pops up in bed and calls for me. She knows I don't make her better but she chooses joy anyway.
Today Ivy surprised us with a fever and some pretty crazy blood pressure. It took a cooling blanket and a dose of paralyzing medication to bring the fever down. A culture later tonight revealed that there is indeed some type of infection growing in her. She is on antibiotics and the ventilator. Her surgery is being postponed until they are certain she is well enough for it.
Not my plan, not a great thing, but I choose joy. How can I not? God used her to teach me this. I hope we can all learn from her. And in the meantime we will wait on The Lord for his perfect timing and perfect plan! Thank you Team Ivy for being here every single day no matter how crazy things get!