Author: Elizabeth Joy

  • Do More Things That Bring You Joy

    For some reason, I used to avoid joy.

    I felt that choosing to do things that brought me joy was frivolous. Also selfish.

    I believed that real value was found in hard work, so there wasn’t really room for play time. I didn’t know how important it was to build joy. How sad!

    Find the Lie

    I’m going to go ahead and be super honest with you here that I STILL wrestle with this lie from time to time. That joyful things need to be held off until after the hard stuff is done. Like I need to earn joy.

    I. KNOW. The one who’s always talking about letting joy loose is on the joy struggle bus sometimes.

    It’s almost like something wants to hold me back from living out my purpose…Go figure.

    Replace it with Truth

    Let me tell you what I tell myself when the struggle rises up:

    • Elizabeth, Jesus came so that your joy would be complete (John 15:11).
    • Today is a day that God made for you, so go ahead and rejoice and be glad in it (Psalm 118:24) because He is your glory and your joy. (1 Thess. 2:20)
    • And may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope (Rom 15:13).
    • Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I say, rejoice. (Phil 4:4)

    Why are you so downcast, O my Soul?

    Another way to get in the habit of joy-building is to regularly journal your gratitude. Grateful souls tend to be joyful souls. Developing a rhythm of gratitude each morning sets us up to see our moments through the day with a better perspective, in in general to grow in increasing joy.

    There is something so uplifting about speaking Scripture over your own downcast soul. Joy is such a good medicine (Proverbs 17:22) The Bible is alive and active and has the power to uplift even the saddest or most weary hearts. And when these words of truth and gratitude breathe joy back into my bones, it frees me up to step more fully into the life-giving things around me that fuel my enjoyment and express my God-wired purpose even more.

    Do more things that bring you joy!

    Next time you are discouraged, or overwhelmed by the hard, why don’t you give one of those methods a try too? Jesus desires for us to be full of His joy, and to do more things that bring us joy!

    Tell me in the comments: What do you to increase your joy??

    Elizabeth Joy

  • It’s ok to have Jesus and a Therapist

    My struggle with mental health after my babies were born stayed silent because I was afraid to ask for help. Honestly, I thought this was just how I was, so I needed to live with it.

    But the seething postpartum rage was like volatile lava under the surface. And it seemed it had the potential to announce its destruction at any moment. Add in the mind mess of complete inadequacy as a mother and the pressure to “have enough faith in Jesus”, and it was a recipe for disaster.

    It’s ok to have Jesus and a Therapist

    It’s ok to have Jesus and a therapist

    Mama, I’m sporting a sweatshirt today that says, “It’s ok to have Jesus and a Therapist.” (Thank you, Grace Story Ministries!)

    Find it here!

    For a long time, I believed the lie that a good Christian wouldn’t need any counsel outside of God Himself. That any uncertainty, emotional turmoil, or mind mess pointed to an insufficiency of faith, and meant I needed to pray harder.

    That assessment and advice are flawed human constructs. And they are in opposition to God’s design for us to be in community.

    God Uses People

    Friend, very often, the Lord actually brings healing through another person He has called and equipped with resources to help: a therapist, a doctor, a friend, a mentor, a pastor, a teacher, a wellness advocate, a coach.

    🔹 He invites us to vulnerability, where we seek help from someone else.

    🔹 And He invites us to open our eyes to see who He’s already placed in our lives.

    🔹 In fact, He simultaneously infuses us with the wisdom, experience, and resources someone else needs on their own healing journey, too.

    He brings life through us even as He brings life to us.

    Which means I don’t need to have it all together.

    Or to pretend like I do.

    It simply rests as an invitation into connection with Him and with others.

    And acknowledgement that it’s good when faith and emotions meet.

    My own journey with my emotions, thoughts, and physical health has actually opened me up to community and to purpose in a way I couldn’t have predicted.

    What about you?

    I wonder what will happen in you as you step into vulnerability and take hold of the help that’s around you in the people God has placed in your life?

    He really does make all things new.

    Elizabeth Joy

  • Do You Want to Establish Your Life Purpose?

    What’s the reason you get up in the morning? What draws you to put your feet on the floor? Does it fuel you with JOY?

    I’ll be honest that many mornings saw my feet hit the floor out of sheer necessity. I didn’t roll out of bed with excitement for what lay ahead of me in the day. In fact I dreaded it, both when working, and when at home with my kids. I didn’t really have a plan or specific goals, or feel at all purposeful. I just knew I had to get up in the morning.

    Do You Want to Establish Your Life Purpose?

    Colorful clothespins on a table. One it upright, holding a blue piece or paper that reads: "Do you want to establish your life purpose?"

    PSA: It shouldn’t take someone to hit their forties before they discover their life can radiate with purpose.

    It shouldn’t be long before they unlock what brings them meaning and joy. It did for me though. I floundered.

    But now my season of purposelessness and floundering fuels me to help other people discover their joyful purpose earlier. To establish purpose now. To build the life that not only leaves an incredible impact on the world, but also brings genuine joy and satisfaction. It’s never too early or too late for that while we still draw breath.

    Several years back, I head this phrase deep in my soul: Joy Let Loose. If you’ve been around these parts, you know that the phrase itself made no sense in my context at the time because I was battling depression and facing difficult times with my kids and my own motivation.

    Joy Let Loose

    But I now know that phrase was the gift of a seed that managed to plant its way into my undeserving soil, and take root.

    Joy Let Loose first became a blog. Because honestly that’s the only thing I could think of to do with it. I was kind of stuck at home at the time, and unable to work, so I figured I’d do something I was decent at, and use this new phrase as a title. On this blog, it became both a lens and a benchmark for how I would serve my readers. I soon discovered many other people were also starving for joy.

    As time progressed and I wrote more for this blog, I had opportunity to write in a few other publications as well. No matter where my words landed, I made the effort to keep JOY as my lens. Because people want to be more joyful.

    A Reason to Get Up in the Morning

    On social media, I curated and created content to help bring people JOY. People were finding it helpful. Then when I launched as a Brand Partner with Young Living, I found my chief audience were women desperate for help with their hormones and emotions. They needed to find sanity in the chaos of everyday life, and were also floundering. Now I have been so blessed to come alongside a couple hundred people to manage those emotions safely and holistically. And I have the honor of mentoring other Brand Partners as they lean into their purpose too.

    As my customers were seeing results in their physical, mental, and emotional wellness, I quickly realized my new small business was an extension of my purpose to let JOY loose in people. And my small business and community bring me exceptional joy.

    That’s really just a snapshot of a focused process that helped me lift up my head from discouragement, cultivate purpose, and lean into it. There were intentional steps I needed to take to examine myself and my motivations, to learn how my past hurts were impacting me, and how my perspective needed shifting.

    I’m so incredibly glad I put in that work to gain clarity and direction.

    Life Coach Certification

    I became certified as a Life Coach, and I have a growing desire to teach people. I wanted to help folks who feel joyless and purposeless learn to rewrite their stories as I did. How to reframe past experiences, leverage their unique skills and passions, and lean into a more focused life.

    For a beautiful season, I offered 1:1 and group online life coaching. I celebrate being able to help women find their life purpose.

    It is so rewarding to see how my own story, my teaching skills, and ministry and life coaching training have prepared me to lead other people toward lives of impact, joy, and fulfillment.

    A New Season – Stay Up To Date

    And now I’m in a new season asking the Lord, “What’s next?” I’d love to add you to my email list so you can stay up to date as I walk into a developing chapter. Simply click here to stay up to date!

    Thanks for much for being here!

    Elizabeth JOY