Choosing JOY!

"Busy day"

"Crazy day"

"Whatever can go wrong will go wrong day"

Take your pick, I've had them this week.

Let's see, my printer is retarded and probably needs to go to printer heaven. This isn't the regular wonderful-but-can-be-replaced for $50 printer. No this is the Scanner-Copier-Printer Fax-that-I can't-live-without-printer. Or course, I only have about $70 worth of ink here in the house for this machine. This is ink that isn't in the box so I can't return it.

And then there's the car, the broken one. Fixing it will cost more than it's worth. So we need to go car shopping. sigh... For that we need money in the budget, right? Either I'm going to have to step up my hours at Michaels, or I won't be buying any stamping supplies for a while. What's going to happen to the economy if I stop buying stamps??

I won't go on with the list, because I'm choosing JOY. I know God's already got it figured out, we just need to trust him and get with His program. Philippians 4:19 says "And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus". So if the Bible is true, and of course I believe it is, God's already got it covered, right?

Since the kids are back in school, I've been taking my hubby to work every day. That's approximately three hours total on the road every day there and back twice. I don't have an extra three hours a day so I've asked God to help me use that time effectively. The good news is when he's in the car with me, my husband and I get to talk. I can't remember when we've had 45 uninterrupted minute blocks of times to talk to each other-- that's a positive thing that has come from this situation. Choosing JOY. When he isn't in the car, I can spend the time meditating on the Biblical truths I hear in the songs on the Christian radio, or I can pray. again, I'm choosing JOY.

Choosing to be joyful, doesn't mean pretend the problems aren't there. It's a choice to look at the problems from God's perspective and learn what I can from the situation. My expectations are from God, not my circumstances.

About the card: This card started out as a swap for someone who loves animals. In line with my thought to use what I have, I chose these seldom-used stamps. I bought a sheet of puppy stamps by Ron Wheeler years ago from Biblical Impressions. They don't carry this artist's stamps anymore. Anyway there were many--at least 20 puppies with different expressions on this one sheet of stamps. I used some of them on two occasions. Once to make a card for a teacher at the kids school when her dog got sick back in 2000. The only other time was in 2005 when I was making samples for BI I did a scrapbook page. The puppies wanted to come out to play!

After I stamped the front of this card I realized that I didn't have an appropriate stamps to go with it so I computer generated the words. I also used several punches to put the finishing touches. The puppy paws in the background are by The Angel Company.

I need to get on with my long "to do" list. Thanks for checking in on me--be blessed and choose joy!