Full of Joy

Chuck reminded me last night that today is my 5 year blog anniversary.  It's rather humbling to have a 5 year blog anniversary of a blog entitled "Full of Joy" on a day when I feel not-so-full-of-joy.  I want to be.  I want to have a joyful heart.  I want to choose joy in the midst of sorry because I know my hope is in Jesus.  My Savior.  Now is the time when I'm supposed to be joyous in the midst of sorrow, right?  And like I said, I want that.  I want to be that girl. My soul seems to be at war with my brain.  The big brain vs. soul brawl of 2011.  My soul says to weep, mourn, wail, and let it rain.  My head says to get back on the horse (OK, dumb illustration because the only time I attempted to ride a horse at the tender age of 10, the stupid said horse tried to bite me.  I've never been back on a horse since.  I sat in a mini-van with the mom of the birthday girl for the entire party.).  Or at least to jump bac...

Grief is a tricky beast.  I'm not sure I even want to try to describe it, but I'm sitting here typing so there must be something inside this writer's soul that needs to work it's way out.  Is describing grief like mixing oil and water?  Because oil and water can not be mixed. A few weeks ago, my personal D-day actually, I was at a Pot Luck.  Chuck and I had been pretty excited about it.  I was in the kitchen of a friend's house mixing up the dressing for the Oriental Salad I was going to serve.  Since we don't own a salad dressing shaker (what the heck would that be called anyway?), I always use our Margarita  shaker to mix dressing.  It called for EVOO (Mom, that means Extra Virgin Olive Oil).  When I went to wash the shaker out, the oil would not- could not- be moved.  I scrubbed and scrubbed and used really hot water.  But, no.  The oil stayed put.  I stuffed it in our bag and went on with the Pot Luck as us...