I am so very excited about this interview! I came across Ashlee's story on social media, and even though I had never had a conversation with her, I knew I wanted to interview her. This interview is seriously SO GOOD! She talks all about what it means to choose joy and how doing just that has literally transformed her entire world. I hope you enjoy!
I wanted you all to not only be able to read our conversation, but actually listen to it! If the above player doesn't work for your browser, you can find the audio from the interview here. (Sidenote, I’m not a fancy podcaster so I really didn't know what I was doing when I recorded this haha! Hence all the background noise and shuffling around. Nonetheless, it is a GREAT interview and if there is anything you can't understand, you can find it in the transcription below!)
I hope this blesses you!
My first question for you is just like a get to know you, random question. If you could eat one food for the rest of your life what would it be?
Oh no, I love food! Haha! I’m such a foodie. I think popcorn. I love popcorn! It’s my go-to snack. Like, if I’m not hungry for dinner but hungry for something, I’ll pop popcorn. You can have it any time!
What’s your enneagram number?
I’m a 2!
Those are my favorite haha, what a great servant's heart you have!
My next question is what would a perfect day look like for you? If you could have like the perfect day, do your favorite activities with your favorite people, what would that look like?
It’d probably be spending the day outside. I love the outdoors! A good temperature where it’s not too hot, not too cold, and it’s sunny! Probably spending it hiking or just going for a walk with my family and maybe some close friends. Maybe having a picnic would be fun! Just relaxing and spending the day reading a good book. I love reading, so that would be a perfect day for me.
So now to our questions related to the topic of choosing joy. And it’s so funny because when I was thinking and praying about what to interview you about, I wasn’t sure. But the theme of choosing joy kept coming up so I was like okay I guess we'll go with that. And then today I was looking back over your bio and I didn’t even realize in the end you mentioned choosing joy and helping others do that in hard circumstances. And I was like wow that’s perfect! So that was exciting for me.
So my question for you is: How do you choose to find joy on days that are less than or far from perfect?
It was funny actually when you told me the theme was choosing joy, because I was like I’ve never talked to her so how does she know that choosing joy has been the cry of my soul for the last 3 years? It’s something that I’ve really been focusing on, because three years ago, my whole life was flipped upside down with chronic illness, disability, and stuff like that. So when you live with chronic illness - and just life in general - you have days that are great and days that are not-so-great. It’s a lot easier to choose joy on the days that are going well because there’s so much you can naturally be joyful about. But how to choose joy on these days that aren’t so great? What it comes down to is that we are called to live lives, and Christ came down to give us life and give it abundantly. And so we have a choice. We can either choose to find the good and the joy and the beauty in the mundane and the not-so-great, or we can choose to pitch a tent in the brokenness of this world and the really sucky moments. And the choice is ours. I would much rather choose joy on those days that aren’t so great and live that life that God calls us to live than to just mope in the not-greatness, in the not great moments of life. Because that’s just going to wear you down. And there’s a time and place to experience feelings because we are given feelings and feelings are good, and you have to work through those, but you also have that choice to make: to choose joy and keep going.
That's so good, I 100% agree. The fact that the choice is ours is just like, I can feel like that and accept it and acknowledge it, but I don't have to stay there like you said. That's so good.
What does choosing joy mean to you? What is joy?
I think a lot of times we think of joy and happiness as being the same thing, so one of the things that I really had to do was separate them and recognize that happiness is very much associated with circumstances. If things are going good, then you’re naturally going to be happy. If you’re spending time with friends who you enjoy, then you’re going to be happy. On your birthday, you’re going to be happy. Joy isn’t necessarily a feeling or an emotion, it’s like a state of being or a state of your soul. It has to be separate from your circumstances, because if joy is dependent on your circumstances, then it’s going to come and go as your circumstances change. But if you separate it from circumstances and you find that Jesus is joy Himself and you find that joy in Him, because Christ is constant, our joy is gonna be constant and not dependent on our circumstances.
I love that. And how do you choose joy? When we’re given the choice, how do you DO that?
That’s the million dollar question haha! I think there are different parts of it. I don’t think joy is something that we just naturally have because it is so tied with Christ and so separate from circumstances. So I think to a certain extent it’s something that Christ has to give you. When you accept Jesus into your heart and when you start building a relationship with Him and you get to know who He is and His character and He becomes a part of your life, joy is something that is a gift, like an outflow of that relationship. So I don’t think that everyone can just choose joy if that makes sense. But when you are given access to Jesus, when you have that relationship with Him, then joy becomes something that you have access to. Like, it’s right there. You just have to make the decision to find it and to look in the everyday moments and the crappy circumstances and say to yourself, “My feelings are valid and I have feelings but I’m not going to let them have the final say.” You have to find the little blessings that the Lord has scattered throughout the day and choose to celebrate them and to be joyful about them.
That's so good! That just reminded me of the fact that joy is a fruit of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit gives us joy so without the Holy Spirit we can't just figure out how to come up with it on our own. Psalm 16:11 says in the presence of God is the fullness of joy, you can't just find that anywhere but in His presence. When you get to the place that you're so in tune with the Lord and you recognize that His presence is here, now, at this moment, in every moment, that's when you can start to find joy in every situation because without realizing that, you're like "Lord why am I in this crappy situation?” but if you can realize that the Lord is there with you in that, you can also see that His joy is with you in that.
I hadn't even thought of joy being a fruit of the Spirit!
Yes, God gives it to us! I often see people posting "think positive" or "say happy words" but there’s no substance in that and it'll make you feel better for like 5 minutes but longterm, when people are going through suffering, you can't rely on that.
Yes, we all have feelings and you can ignore your feelings, but if you ignore the bad feelings you're going to ignore the good feelings too. You can't just pick and choose.
Yeah that's so true, you can't just brush it under the rug.
So how has choosing joy changed your life, your everyday day-to-day life?
When I first became aware of this battle with joy was when I first got sick which was three years ago. I was a freshman in college starting my second semester. I just woke up one morning and was in horrible pain, couldn't walk, it literally happened overnight. I had to withdraw from school, move to Wisconsin from North Carolina, and so all of these major things that weren't so great happened all at the same time. For months, about six months I think if I remember correctly, I dealt a lot with depression. I pitched a tent in my brokenness and in the pain. I was angry and bitter and I had a lot of doubts about God and His character, which I think is natural when we're going through something. I came across a verse in John that says Satan, the thief, comes to steal, kill, and destroy; but “I have come," Jesus is talking, “so that you may have life and have it abundantly.” And I realized when I read that that I was not living life and I was not living it abundantly, and I was just handing Satan my joy, I was handing him my life for him to steal, kill, and destroy. The Spirit really started teaching me in that moment about choosing joy. As I navigated that and learned what that meant and how it applied to my life, everything changed. When the Spirit starts moving and working in your life it's so amazing how everything changes from the way that you live to the way that you perceive the world and things that are going on around you. My circumstances didn’t change at all, in fact, they kept getting worse and worse, we couldn’t figure out what was going on. So circumstances didn't change except for the worst, but the way that I was able to handle those circumstances, and the way that I learned to live an abundant life despite was what going on with me and around me, it was so much better than it had been when I was just laying on the couch moping about how this wasn't supposed to happen, this shouldn't be the way that it is. Even today it’s been a drastic change from not being spiritually alive to thriving in life.
Wow, that's so good. And I think it's very powerful that it wasn't a story of "Oh I’m not sick anymore and now I can have joy and that's when my life changed” but you found joy even while you're still sick and while you're still going through this. It speaks a lot to the power of the Gospel and who God is. When people are just like "Oh God can heal you!” And yeah He absolutely can, but what if He doesn't? That doesn’t make Him any less God. And I think it's even more powerful when you're like I found joy even before I could see a physical change or a physical result of me praying for something. I think the fact that God is like, not only can I heal you but I can also provide joy for you even before I heal you. I think that makes God bigger. Like oh, it's nothing for God to heal me, but for Him to provide joy in an impossible situation!? Yeah. I think people don't really grasp that just because things may look the same outwardly, that doesn't mean God hasn't answered prayers. I think your story is a huge testimony of that. Just wow.
I think specifically to healing, it is so much more inclusive than just physical healing. You may not experience physical healing but that doesn't mean the Lord can’t heal. But I've experienced such spiritual healing that I wouldn’t have experienced or gotten any other way.
Right! And if you don’t go through those things, if it happened overnight that you’re all better, you wouldn't know how to depend on the Lord for joy, you wouldn't know how to depend on Him for strength and you wouldn't know how to look to Him in those dark places. We can't just negate the valleys of life because I think God really uses those hard moments to teach us “This is who I am" and we wouldn't know that if we didn't have to go through that.
So, what has the Lord taught you through choosing joy?
I guess the biggest thing He's taught me is that joy cannot be tied to circumstances. It can't be circumstantial because when you tie joy to circumstances then it's going to come and go. You're gonna be disappointed, you're gonna be let down because circumstances are up and down. We can't count on our circumstances to bring us joy. But the biggest thing that I've learned is that, like you said in Psalm 16:11, “in Your presence is fullness of joy.” That's one of my favorite verses. In God's presence is where we find our joy and that's the only place we are guaranteed to find that joy so we have to look for it in Him. We can't rely on circumstances.
What is the hardest part of choosing joy and how do you deal with that? If you're having a hard day and finding it hard to find joy, what do you do in those moments?
It’s hard. It's not easy, it’s not a piece of cake to just choose joy, and there are definitely days where I'm like "God I do not want to choose joy today. I'm just going to sit here and I'm going to mope and be unhappy and not talk to You today." And I don't know what the right thing to do is, but what I tend to do is: I acknowledge that I don't want to choose joy that day, even though I know that it’s probably not what the Lord wants us to do, to not choose joy. But sometimes, you just have to sit there for a minute and be like “Okay, I don't want to choose joy today.” Listen to your feelings, figure out what's going on, like, why don’t you want to choose joy. I feel like you have to go through seasons of it being really difficult to choose joy and acknowledge those because if you just kind of brush it under the rug and choose joy anyway, it's not really going to be joy. So I think it's okay to be angry and to be bitter and to be sad sometimes. Then when you're starting to feel better, invite the Lord into that and let Him renew that joy in you. We're just human beings, we don’t have the power to always choose joy. It isn't our human nature. So I think sometimes it's not up to us, I think sometimes it is very much up to Jesus to just figure out, “Okay, what does she have left? What do I have to do to meet her in that middle where My grace is?”
That's so good, because sometimes you just can't and you can't force it.
Yeah, and it’s important to give yourself grace when you can't choose it.
Yes, because God knows that we’re all human and sometimes that's just how life is. And I think that it's powerful to know that doesn’t scare Him away. Our just wanting to be angry and bitter, He's not going to run from that. He’s still there in those moments when we're not the best Christians or feel like we're not doing a great job, and I think in those moments where you're like "Wow I'm a crappy Christian right now" that’s where we can really understand and receive what grace is. Because God isn't about us being 100% joyful all the time. He meets us in our weakness and that's where His grace is.
Have you ever received a negative reaction from someone for trying to choose joy?
I haven't had a negative reaction, but confusion. "You're in this situation where you can’t walk and you're in pain all the time and you have doctors and tests and why are you so joyful? That's not normal.” So not so much negative reactions or responses, but just confusion. But it's kind of cool because– we’re not a part of this world. We're made to be image bearers of God and to reflect His character, and so regardless of who you are and what you're doing, if you have the Spirit within you then you're going to stand out. And if you're intentional about living a life of worship, then you're going to stand out and people are always going to question you. But what I’ve found is that when people question me about finding joy in circumstances that aren't naturally joyful, it gives me this opportunity to share why I'm joyful and that the Lord is my joy and to share what Christ has done for me. And so it's a really cool kind of a mission field opportunity.
I know you've talked about John 10:10, but are there any other Bible verses that have really helped you to choose joy when that's like the last thing that makes sense to do?
Yeah! Psalm 16:11 is one of my favorites. It says "In Your presence is fullness of joy, at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” That one is huge just to remind me that joy isn't in circumstances but it is only in Christ. I like 1 Samuel 3:18. The story is this priest, he’s facing a really difficult situation, and God comes to Him in a dream and he's talking to God and he just says “You know what, I know it's You in this moment. I know You’re here in this moment, Lord. Let the Lord do what He sees best.” I think it's a good reminder for anyone in a really tough situation where it's not easy to choose joy, to just be reminded that the Lord is still in that circumstance. He hasn't run away, He hasn't abandoned you, even though it’s not the best of circumstances, He’s still right there, and He is going to do what He sees best in the situation. He's going to carry you through and bring you through with the best of intentions for you. When you shift your perspective from "The Lord is out to get me" to “The Lord is right here for me” then it's a lot easier, it's not easy but easi-ER, to practice choosing joy.
So good, I love that. The Lord is right here with me. Like, we're doing this together. I used to view it as God gives me the strength to get through hard times, but the way I was viewing it was like God will see me at the end, when I get to the finish line or when I get to the light at the end of the tunnel. But He's like, “No, I go through this with you. I'm not like ‘Here's all the strength that you need and I'll see you later' but ‘Here’s all the strength. The strength that you have to get through this is because I'm there. I don't just give you strength, but Me being there is the strength." I was just like wow that's so powerful because I had this really not correct view of going through hardship. Because I know I’m going to get through it because of the strength of the Lord, but like not realizing that He literally is the strength. And that's why I'm gonna get through it, because of Him and not because He gives me something.
What are some words of encouragement for somebody having trouble finding joy and also practical steps for people to do to find joy in hard situations?
Remember that you can hold both pain and joy in the same hand. I think we often believe this lie that pain and joy can't coexist, that they're mutually exclusive. It goes back to joy isn't circumstantial. Like, you can have pain and joy together. It’s okay to feel pain and it's okay to not be okay sometimes. You can still be joyful in spite of it. And I think that's a hard thing to wrap your mind around because it's so countercultural to hold both pain and joy together, like you can feel both. But it's such a freeing truth because it gives you permission to feel and gives you permission to walk through those hard, deep, dark places that you've tried to sweep under the rug for so long. It gives you permission to shed light on them and still be joyful.
As far as practical steps for choosing joy, I think the biggest thing - and it's probably cliché and everybody says it, but it's so so important - is to just build that relationship with the Lord and be intentional about opening your Bible, even if it's just a devotional book for five minutes, whatever you can do. Be intentional about building that relationship with the Lord, because if you don't build a relationship with Him, then you have no foundation to fall back on when it comes crashing down. If you're intentional about building that relationship when things are good, then you’re going to have a foundation to stand upon when circumstances aren't what you want them to be. Another thing is if you are having a really hard time, it's okay to go see someone. Personally, I just got home from a counselor. I have a counselor who I can talk to and she's a professional who helps me work through, in a healthy manner, things that I experience and things that I go through. It’s so helpful to help shift your perspective back to what you can do versus can't do, what you're capable of, and how Christ plays into that. Those are my two practical words of wisdom.
That's so good. I totally appreciate you talking about going to see someone. I think a lot of times it can be taboo, but I think people are getting better with it. But it can be like "Oh you don't trust the Lord so you're going to see a counselor.” But God uses those people, so much. Like somebody who's professionally trained in that area to help you work through things, I think that's so important and I'm glad you said that.
The last question: In what ways does choosing joy help you to be a light in the darkness and help you to show people who Jesus is?
Well, we already talked about how joy is so counter-cultural and our purpose in this life is to reflect Christ in everything that we say and do and to honor Him in our words and our actions. So when we are intentional about choosing joy, then we are naturally going to be reflecting Christ and bringing His light into the dark and broken places of this world. And it's also cool how emotions or feelings, the ways that we react to certain situations, it's very much contagious. Like if you're going into an exam and you're feeling really confident about this exam, but your friend next to you is really super anxious, then you're going to feel anxious in the exam. So just like that anxiety is contagious, I think joy is very much contagious, too. When you have someone feeling joy and is this joyful person, people are going to notice and it all points back to Christ.
Right. That's so good. I love that. It’s like a light. Like you can't not see a light!
Thank you so much! Are there any last comments you want to share?
Thank you for reaching out to me and asking me to do this. It was very encouraging for me to have someone reach out and affirm that Christ is working through me. I think it's hard sometimes when you're going through circumstances to really feel like you're being used or being a light, so thank you for reaching out because it was very encouraging to me.
Absolutely! Your story is very encouraging. Sometimes it's easy to focus on yourself and your own situation, your own circumstances, so that's why it can be hard to feel like you're being used because you're feeling so focused on how this is affecting you or on what you're doing or on what you have to bring to the table but when you look up and look around, you see how many people right in front of you are being impacted and because of the great wonderful world of social media literally so many people can be encouraged by you. Know that the Lord has strategically placed you in front of the people who need to see you and the people who need to hear your story. Which is another reason, why I started interviewing people on my blog– just to help people to put their stories out there and have it in front of a different audience, a different set of eyes, different people, different hearts that can take it in and be encouraged by it.
Thank you!
 |
MEET ASHLEE! Ashlee is a 22-year-old student at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, studying communications. She loves to read and write, and she dreams of one day becoming a Christian author. Ashlee’s passion is to share with others about Jesus’ role in her life with chronic illness, especially how He has helped her choose joy in spite of hard circumstances. Connect with Ashlee! Instagram: @ashleegal | email: ashlee.fearlesslyjoyful@gmail.com |