In the past few weeks, I’ve been turning over the concept of happiness versus joy. Can they exist one without the other? Can a person FEEL happy without having lasting joy? What of joy…can you feel like a miserable depressed wreck of a human being…but deep down be anchored in joy?

If you look up official definitions, they are the same thing: one the synonym for the other. And in our every day language, we tend to equate them. So, while I’ve been tossing this around in my head, I’ve tossed myself into a bit of a conundrum.

I don’t FEEL happy. Depression is like that…gives you a ton of feelings that may or may not be real. Learning to process those feelings is what managing and overcoming depression is all about, I suppose.

Learning to accept or reject a particular emotional state based on factors other than the emotions themselves? Well, that’s downright difficult. And the effort alone is enough to make most people just give up which ties into the hopelessness of it all. “I’m down, I’ll always be down and getting back up again is so exhausting and difficult that I’d rather just stay down.”

So you see, when I use happiness and joy as synonymous I tend to get tied up in knots. Because I’m a freak, apparently, who can separate the two. “I feel unhappy, but I HAVE joy.”

Happiness is an emotion. Joy is a fruit of the spirit. Happiness might be elusive to me, but joy is present. Happiness may hit me as my perception of circumstances allows, but joy anchors me, and springs forth from a source that is perfect, strong, and never ending.

If only I would let it do that more often.

This year, I’d like focus on just that: allowing the Father to root me in joy.