Joy: Recognizing Joy within Every Chapter of Life

By Missy Brewer Carruth

Discovering the one true source of everlasting joy upon salvation, it becomes one's choice to realize and recognize the blessing of this joy scripted throughout each chapter of one's life. This book is a personal journey of recognizing that joy within every chapter of life. In an intimate glimpse within the very pages of each chapter, Missy shares the details of her victorious ongoing journey-a journey filled with immeasurable blessings, pages of heartache and pain, chapters of triumph and failure, undeserving grace and mercy, beautiful love and redemption, and a victorious ending of eternal joy. As she navigates through the pages of her driven quest for perfection and success, Missy recognizes the joy that her Savior has enveloped upon each chapter. Using people, experiences, and love to pen the most beautiful letter, her Savior revealed to her the simple truth of genuine joy. With the turn of each page, she not only discovers but also recognizes that genuine joy is intertwined within every chapter. A joy that is planned and scripted beautifully by her Savior, Jesus Christ.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Sep 16, 2019
• ISBN: 9781645590408

Book preview

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Joy

Recognizing Joy within Every Chapter of Life

Missy Brewer Carruth

ISBN 978-1-64559-039-2 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64559-040-8 (Digital)

Copyright © 2019 Missy Brewer Carruth

All rights reserved

First Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Covenant Books, Inc.

11661 Hwy 707

Murrells Inlet, SC 29576

www.covenantbooks.com

Table of Contents

Preface

Introduction

Recognizing Joy in Every Chapter

Childhood

Family

Competition

Sorrow

Marriage

Motherhood

Support

Identity

Calling

Salvation

Heaven

Recognition of Genuine Joy

About the Author

This book is dedicated to my incredible husband, my three children, my family, and my friends as God has used each one of them to beautifully script such blessings of joy throughout every page of my life.

This book is also dedicated to the memory of my amazing grandmother Toodles Dickerson Gatlin. God used and continues to use her life to pen such everlasting words of joy upon each chapter of my life.

Preface

A quiet road trip for work was used to flood my soul with the incredible reminder of my Savior’s beauty. As I drove, my heart was flooded with immeasurable joy that comes only from Him. I’m thankful for the simple beauty of my everyday life and the joy that this life provides.

That joy is found in my husband’s smile, my kid’s laughter, my mother’s voice, my dad’s work ethic, my sister’s sweet spirit, my brother’s heart, my sister-in-law’s humor, my grandmother’s handwriting, my cousin connections, my Inna’s selfless service, my brother-in-law’s wit, my friend’s text, my church’s vision, and my Savior’s love.

I was reminded to never take one single gift for granted and recognize the blessing of joy within each gift. Following a post on social media, God began to call me to write. Encouraged by my mother, I began to put words on a page. God poured words out of me and onto the page as I penned an intimate look into my journey of recognizing the joy within each chapter of my life.

Introduction

Joy is mentioned over two hundred times within the NIV translation of the Bible. Discovering our one true source of everlasting joy upon our salvation, it becomes one’s choice to realize and recognize the blessing of this joy scripted throughout each chapter of one’s life. This book is a personal journey of recognizing that joy within every chapter of my life. In an intimate glimpse within the very pages of each chapter, I share the details of my victorious on-going journey—a journey filled with immeasurable blessings, pages of heartache and pain, chapters of triumph and failure, undeserving grace and mercy, beautiful love and redemption, and a victorious ending of eternal joy.

Chapter 1

Recognizing Joy in Every Chapter

Joy is defined by Webster as the emotion evoked by well-being, success or good fortune, or by the prospect of possessing what one desires: delight. But I am discovering that genuine joy is intended to be so much more. The source of the most authentic immeasurable joy is not found in one’s own desire but rather in the desire of our one true King—our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Jesus says, I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. (John 15:11 New International Version) The desire of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is that we each find our joy in Him, and within that discovery is where we shall experience the complete fullness of that immeasurable joy. Real, authentic joy is essentially defined by the choice that lies within each of us and is only as grand as we allow it to become within our individual world, which is guided by His calling upon our life. If the popular phrase that beauty is characterized by the eye of the beholder is true, then joy is quite possibly limited by the soul of the beholder. As beautifully scripted by Isaac Watts over three centuries ago, the lyrics below capture this source of joy:

Joy to the world, the Lord is come!

Let earth receive her King

Let every heart prepare Him room,

And Heaven and Nature Sing

And Heaven and Nature Sing

And Heaven, and Heaven, and Nature sing.

Joy to the world, the Savior reigns!

Let men their songs employ;

While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains

Repeat the sounding joy,

Repeat the sounding joy,

Repeat, Repeat, the sounding joy.

No more let sins and sorrows grow,

Nor thorns infest the ground;

He comes to make His blessings flow

Far as the curse is found,

Far as the curse is found,

Far as, far as, the curse is found.

He rules the world with truth and grace,

And makes the nations prove

The glories of His righteousness,

And wonders of His love,

And wonders of His love,

And wonders, wonders, of His love.

These words were written centuries ago and are sung throughout generations to profess our earthly desire of obtaining heavenly joy both on heaven and earth. Yet we limit ourselves in recognizing the manifestations of joy within each and every chapter of our life while here on earth. If we truly allow ourselves to discover the reality of what God intends for us to recognize, our mind stands to be amazed. In the short four decades that I have been blessed here on earth, God has revealed and continues to reveal to me the importance of recognizing each blessing of joy within my journey. Instead of just waiting expectantly for my step into the promise of my glorious eternity with Him, I have learned the beauty within the joy of what He has called me to do upon this earth. An amazing joy that is both overwhelming and undeserving! A joy that is ever growing as I learn to recognize the blessing among every chapter of this life. The joy found in the happiest and the saddest moments, the busiest and the slowest moments, the stressful and the peaceful moments—the joy found in every moment.

It took me quite some time to discover that I was repeatedly missing what He so beautifully had planned and designed within my life as pure joy. This recognition began to provide truly what I was discovering to be heaven on earth! I truly believe that He desires for us to live our very best life right here with genuine real joy beginning the moment we accept Him as our personal Lord and Savior. He could, if was His intent, rapture each Christian at the moment of our salvation, but He does not. Why?

In Matthew Chapter 28, as the incredible story of Jesus’s resurrection is being told, in Verses 18–20 following His resurrection, Jesus gives the Great Commission to his disciples stating:

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.

He, clearly, has plans for His children while on this journey toward heaven. We all have been called and instructed to not only live a life full of His abundant joy and undeserving grace but have been charged with the important task of sharing this incredible news throughout our journey toward heaven.

I know within my soul that His desire through the calling on my life is to recognize and experience the blessing of the joy that is so intertwined through each fabric of my life as I strive to live a life defined and guided by His glory. A life full of joy. One that radiates such blinding beauty! A life with true purpose because with this recognition, it becomes an all-consuming responsibility. As a child of the one true King, the joy begins to compound as you embrace the calling upon your life.

God, may my life point others to you. May I live a life that exudes Your love bringing glory to You and abounds in the joy that follows! This responsibility creates a consistent prayer within my own life as I cry out to God to continuously strip my selfish pride away.

God, when people look at me, may they never see me but always see You. I have learned that not only within each chapter of my life can I become distracted by my selfish desires, but this dangerous distraction becomes a blockade for others to see Him through me.

Thinking through each important chapter of my life, it overwhelms me with a sense of fear as I recognize the opportunity of impact within each page. The incredible impact that He desires to pour into each turn and the incredible impact that each turn has on others. There are many chapters within my life that each hold distinct and important opportunity. I know that God has placed me within my story for a specific reason, and I am striving to recognize the importance of this calling. I must say as I look at so many wasted pages that I am overcome with disappointment. As God continues to reveal the growing importance that is so beautifully designed with each chapter, I also begin to recognize my ability to miss each and every opportunity within the words. So I am on the quest to recognize each within my story.

As a child, I learned early what it meant to live for the joy in Him as I watched daily two parents exude His love and