Sorrow, my comfort food

I have hit a point in my life when I was sick of being sad. I was sitting down one day and I was thinking how far back it had gone, how long had I feed my sorrows? The shocking and really disturbing thing was that it had been over 10 years. I had a secret addiction and it was sorrow. When a feeling becomes common you do not even realize how much it impacts your life, the feelings of joy, excitement and motivated are all great feelings. Unfortunately for me I had NO idea what that felt like, for about 4 years those feelings had not even knocked on my door. I did not know what joy felt like until I had a dream about it. Yes a dream about joy, go figure. On a regular night I went to sleep and had one of those white lights every where dreams. The only thing that you saw was my face, I knew my body was there but only the left side of my face was visible, I was looking at myself smiling which is a foreign concept to me. I realized that I was talking to someone on my right side, I was laughing and looked like I was having a good time and for the first time I felt joy. I had an innate feeling that the person I was talking to was Jesus. Before that day my relationship with God was like my relationship with fruits, I always had fruits around I just did not desire it. That all changed that night, after I woke up to what seemed immediately I cried. I cried so hard for my joyful self, I never knew that girl. I did not know she existed and I did not know how to get her to stay. For the next couple of months I sought that joy. I could honestly say that after 6 months of me building a relationship with Jesus, everything that could go wrong did.It was as if I was going against the current of the river, fighting for my joy while my circumstances were against me. Still today I struggle, I find myself in a awkward place when I smile. I think that the concept of being happy for too long is not normal and I have an internal battle to stay there because sorrow was not my friend but she does know how to walk in to my life uninvited. My sad friends I will like to give you some advice, fight for your joy everyday. This battle is constant and it is a tiring but a rewarding fight. I can not tell you how many times a day I have to give myself a pep talk. I think about what a side comment will do to my attitude, or how my willingness to take the constant test to curse instead of smile comes and goes. However I have taken this foreign concept and adapted it to my everyday life, and although it does seems unfamiliar here it sure is welcomed because when I shut the door to the sad me, the glad me was waiting with luggage.