How to Find Happiness in the Darkness

 By: Shari A. Miller

“Rejoice in Hope, be patient in tribulation, be consistent in prayer.” - Romans 12:12

Do you ever find times in your life where you feel like your being covered in darkness? Do you ever feel like you have your own personal wars that no one else understands? These wars could be anything from financial troubles, a husband that has been looking at porn, problems with children or problems at work. The list can be never ending. It can be just one war your facing or multiple wars coming at you from all sides. It's right about here where you just want to dig a fox hole, like those seen in WW2, and sink down deep into it's darkness where none of your wars can get to you.

   

The problem with this is, if you stay in the darkness of your fox hole too long, your going to miss the happiness that's going on above. Just because there are trials going on around you, it doesn't mean that there’s not sunshine and happiness mixed in. 

When I go through a trial, whatever it may be, I try to remind myself that these times are the enemy tying to attack me and make me doubt God's sovereignty. I have a little mantra that I tell myself as I face my own personal war of cancer.

"I will not let the enemy destroy everything around me.  He's already taken so much with cancer, he's not going to take anymore. I have so much to be happy about during this time. There are birthday's, graduations, time with family, holidays and so much more. I will make sure to be present in these times and enjoy the sunlight of these times streaming across my face as my smile brightens with each passing moment."

You too can choose to look past your personal wars and see the sunlight/happiness in the distance. It's just a matter of actually choosing to get out of your sufferings for a moment and choose joy instead. Below are a list of five activities that help me find happiness in the darkness.

Six Ways to Find Happiness in the Darkness

1. Change of Focus - Every day, intentional look at the good things that are going on around you. Your husband's gentle touch, hearing I love you from your Mother. The mile wide grin on your child's face as he just made you breakfast in bed and brought it into you, with a homemade card and all. 

2. Prayer - Never forget to pray. Prayer is our connection to God. It allows us to express our concerns to Him and allows Him to speak to us as well.

3. Time in God's Word - It's so important to spend time in God's Word. It teaches us how to act, and gives us strength to face challenges. It also bring us happiness as it reminds us that God is always there for us and He will never leave us.

4. Scripture Memorization - When we hide God's Word in our heart we will always have it to look back on and ruminate on. Especially as we look into the future, we are seeing signs where we may not have our actual Bibles to read from. During these times, scripture memorization will be so beneficial.

5. Counting our Blessings - I have a journal where I write down my blessings that God has bestowed on me. It could be the sound of rain drops on the roof of my car, a neighbor who almost, always, shovels my driveway for me. One of the biggest blessings that I find this time of year is the sun setting latter and latter, I love to see the warm sunshine light up the days just a little bit longer.

6. Rejoicing in the traits that are being produced through suffering.  - As we face trials, there are numerous things to be happy about, when we are right in the thick of everything. In Romans 5:3-5 it states, 

"More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."

We need to remember that when we are fighting through our own personal wars, there is still happiness right in the middle of them, because they are causing us to grow and mature and be made more into the image of Christ our Lord.

Doing all of these things helps to push my darkness away and causes the bright sunlight to stream through. I'm not always perfect at doing them, but when I do it makes a world of difference. What about you? What things do you do to find happiness during the dark times in your lives?