Choosing Joy

Father Daughter Dance, 2012

Savanna turned eighteen this week! I can't help remembering when she turned sixteen, after the last Father Daughter Banquet, I though the world was ending because she was so old! Now she's an adult!

Anyway, on to the subject.

Joy is a decision, joy is a battle. Joy is a conscious choice every morning. Joy takes the strength of God, and you willing to go along! When I wake up in the morning, and my mind unconsciously runs through everything I have to do in the day, where I have to go, and how much time I have to do it all, joy does not bubble out of me. Sometimes, I let the joy go, I don't try and find it. Trust me, I'm sure you all know those are how you make days go badly. Joy is not something that you have to wait for to find. (I'm not speaking literally, that was mostly figural) If I want to embrace joy, I've got to stretch my sleepy self a few feet to reach for my bible, and read. I'll be honest, sometimes I don't find anything groundbreaking.
I don't fall to my knees praying and worshipping. But when I acknowledge the presence of God inside me, I am able to choose to fight off anything that would hinder me, and choose to rejoice in my day.
Sometimes I don't hold on to the joy, and that is when I get grumpy, and my siblings walk a wide circle around me:) But be encouraged! Even if you've gone the whole day ignoring God's gift of life itself, He's always waiting for you to turn around and ask him to guide you!

This subject didn't go on for very long, so I guess you guys get an excerpt from Mermaid's Tears!

This is part of the scene where she is convinced to turn into a mermaid:P

               I close my eyes and remember, all the cold nights, all the hunger, despair. I remember how much the people of the town have hurt me, how much they abused me with their words.  I think of how I’ll never be loved, how I’ll never find anyone who could love me. I want the tears to come, but my eyes are just stinging. I squeeze my eyes, and I feel one tear fall. The mermaid catches the tear and blows on it, causing it to whirl up from her hand, glowing like a pearl. She stares at in in admiration, and holds the oyster shell up to it. The tear solidifies and drops into the shell.. It looks just like a pearl should, dully glowing pink and blue at the same time.  She pushes the oyster into my hand.

                        “Whatever you do, don’t let go. This is your life.”

 She pulls the fish up and slits its neck with her teeth. She spreads the blood on my feet, then puts her hands on my eyes and slides them down to my temples, using the blood to create a pattern. She continues the pattern on the side of my face and my neck. Slick, wet blood itches my neck. She is massaging the pattern into my face with her hard thumbs. It hurts, oh it doesn't, shouldn't feel real. With her shriek, pain tingles and swirls up my face, plowing through my legs. Agony. Why am I alive? Something pulls me into the water.

Maybe some more will come later:) 

~Avery