Melanie Dickerson Shares about Finding Peace and Joy Despite Circumstances

Melanie Dickerson

When Carrie first asked me to write about a struggle I’ve had, I wasn’t sure what I would write about. But then, soon after, I had an epiphany.

Pretty much all my life I have struggled with the fact that God said we Christians are supposed to “be glad and rejoice,” and to have joy and peace. That sounded good to me. I was all for joy and peace. But somehow joy and peace always eluded me. I didn’t have a particularly joyful personality, it seemed, and that was something I didn’t like about myself. And since I had the power to change myself, through Jesus, I prayed for that to change.

I prayed for joy. I prayed a lot. But still I didn’t change. I was still the slightly cynical person I always was. I worked on becoming more positive, and I did learn to be much more positive. Now I deliberately look on the bright side of things—not always, but most of the time. I put forth the effort to be more positive, and God helps me.

Still, I couldn’t understand why I hadn’t, essentially, changed. I had not become a happy person who never got depressed or down about my circumstances. In fact, I had become really frustrated. It seemed my circumstances completely ruled my mood. If things were not going well, I felt sad. If things were going better, I was relatively happy. But I didn’t like being ruled by my circumstances. There was always something not going well, it seemed. I was a Christian. I wasn’t supposed to be ruled by my circumstances. I was supposed to be able to rise above them. But how? Why couldn’t I be one of those people who was happy all the time, no matter what? Why wasn’t God changing me and making me joyful? I’d tried really hard to become joyful. I’d prayed really hard for it. I’d believed that joy was my destiny as a Christian. Why didn’t I feel joy?

Then one day I was reading my Bible and it hit me. I’d been striving to LEARN to be joyful and to be at peace, but I didn’t FEEL joyful or peaceful. But the Bible said joy and peace were fruits of the Holy Spirit. Does a pear tree have to LEARN to bear pears? Does it have to put forth a lot of effort to produce pears? No. It’s the nature of a pear tree to bear pears. It has pears INSIDE IT, so to speak, and the pears just naturally come forth. Why wouldn’t it be the same with joy and peace? If joy and peace are fruits of the Holy Spirit, and I have the Holy Spirit inside me, then I HAVE joy and peace. I don’t have to learn or strive for joy and peace. They are there, inside me.

This may seem simple and obvious to you, but to me, it was a breakthrough. I also realized that I don’t have to change my personality to feel joy and peace. God makes us all with different personalities and characteristics. I may be a rather melancholy person by nature, but God gives me joy and peace. I’m not a wildly happy person all the time, a Pollyanna who never gets down, but God does give me joy and peace in a very real way. I am who I am, personality-wise, and I can accept myself the way I am. I was able to learn to be more positive and to trust God more. But joy and peace are my heritage, a deposit that comes with having the Holy Spirit living in me, a blessing that came when I accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior and He came and made His home in me. I am in Christ and He is in me. Joy. Peace.

One thing that brings about joy and peace, is remembering my salvation. Psalm 51:12 says, “Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.”
There is joy in knowing I am saved and will be with God in heaven, that all my sins are forgiven, and that I am right with God and He sees me as righteous. Wow. And I can have peace because God is always with me. He never leaves me. He never forsakes me. I have God’s Holy Spirit inside me. Therefore, I have peace. It is a fruit of God’s Spirit. I can’t explain it, but just dwelling on that gives me peace in a way that I had seldom felt peace before.

This newfound joy and peace was tested recently when, on Halloween night, my purse was stolen out of my van in the church parking lot while I was inside playing games with the neighborhood children. It’s an outreach our church does every year. To get my purse stolen was a nightmare, the very kind of unsettling, time-stealing, aggravating thing that I hate. I hate calling any sort of customer service to get something straightened out. And a week and a half later, I am still having to call customer service lines to get things straightened out. I had to get my driver’s license replaced, cancel my bank account and set up a new one, change my credit card on PayPal and every online store I regularly shop at, not to mention call all the customer service people at all the places that automatically charge my credit card every month—like my website host.

But, through this very frustrating circumstance, I survived. Most of the things I had to do were not as difficult as I’d thought they’d be. I was able to cancel my credit card and debit card before the thief was able to use the credit card more than once. But it still wasted a lot of my time and caused me a lot of aggravation.

A day and a half after it was stolen, I had to drive two hours to an event I had agreed to do months earlier. It was a beautiful morning, and I was thinking about my purse getting stolen, and the fact was, I felt enormous peace and joy. The sky was beautiful that morning. I was alone with my thoughts and God, and I realized that that thief had stolen very little from me, and certainly nothing of great value, because the only thing that really matters is my salvation and relationship with God. And that thief could never steal that from me.

Hebrews 12:26-27 says: At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.”  The words “once more” indicate the removing of what can be shaken—that is, created things—so that what cannot be shaken may remain.

My salvation, and my status of being “in Christ Jesus” and having the Holy Spirit living inside me, cannot be shaken. No matter what my circumstances are, no matter what the devil tries to steal, kill, and destroy, I will not be shaken, my salvation will not be stolen, and I will always have the fruit of the Spirit inside me, including peace and joy.

The Captive Maiden by Melanie Dickerson

Bio:

Melanie Dickerson has just published her fourth book with Zondervan - The Captive Maiden. She is also author of The Fairest Beauty – Snow White retelling, The Merchant’s Daughter – Carol Award winner and Christy Award finalist, The Healer’s Apprentice – Christy Award finalist and winner of the National Readers Choice Award for Best First Book.

You can connect with Melanie on:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MelanieDickersonBooks

Twitter: https://twitter.com/melanieauthor

Buy links:

Amazon: Click here

Christianbook.com: Click here

Barnes & Noble: Click here

GIVEAWAY: A paperback copy of The Captive Maiden will be given away to one blessed commenter so be sure and leave a comment on all the posts this week!