Like many others, I’ve decided to choose a word of the year for 2020.

My word is joy.

Not the silly, feel good, dance around kind – though, goodness knows, I love and pray for plenty of times when that comes.

Real, the Joy of the Lord is my strength, abiding, internal joy.

This morning, actually, as I was looking through Instagram for something unrelated, this verse appeared:

Not only have I JUST restarted Ann Voskamp’s One Thousand Gifts – all about gratitude – but You clothed me with joy. I have no doubt this verse was meant for me today.

Though the feeling is fabulous, being clothed with joy is beyond any sort of feeling, thank God.

Living with CRPS, flares come with waves of pain, the intensity of which are just impossible to completely describe – much less contain.

In some cases, including mine, it can become systemic. That, coupled with fact that it is in both of my legs so I deal with it anytime I stand up and walk, can be so discouraging at times.

Dealing with such a beast on a daily basis, it’s all the more important to choose joy, to seek it out, to pray for it, to cling to it.

And I will.

Happy 2020, everybody.

Be well. Take care of yourselves and each other.

Grace and Blessings.