By Kristen Mudrack

Advent is a season of waiting.  A season of expectant waiting.  Though many church traditions have different meanings of the candles surrounding the advent wreath, the one I’ve chosen to focus on this year is hope, joy, love, and peace. 

Joy

I’ve been writing a lot about joy in the last year for the devotional I’ve been working on.  While that certainly doesn’t mean that I’ve got joy all figured out, it does mean that I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about it this year. 

Joy doesn’t exactly come naturally to us.  It’s much  more in our nature to complain, grumble and argue when things get hard.  It’s less common for us to really be joyful. 

Because joy isn’t dependent on the things happening around us or to us.  It’s about something so much bigger, and so much better. 

Our joy as Christians comes directly from the source: Jesus Christ.  Our joy is complete in Him. 

Complete joy in Christ means that we can stand up in the hard times and still say that God is good.  It means that we don’t place our worth and our happiness in our circumstances.  It means that even through the tears, we praise the One who made us, loved us and gave Himself up for us. 

Even when we’re asking why God allowed something to happen, when we’re wondering what the purpose of it all really is, joy means that we open our eyes and look up to someone greater than ourselves. 

Even when the world seems to be crumbling around us and nothing is the way it should be, even at funerals and in hospital rooms, joy is still there. 

When we find our joy in the baby born in a manger, when we find it in the Savior of the world, everything else falls away.  Everything else seems a little bit less when Jesus takes center stage.  When our lives are focused towards the One who gave up His life for us, the One who was born to die, it shifts our perspective.  It leaves room for joy. 

May you experience the joy of the Savior’s birth this advent season, no matter what your circumstances are right now.