Happiness

I updated my facebook quote thingy the other day (did you even know this was a thing?!)

well it is. haha and I updated mine as I figured that a new stage in life warranted a new quote to describe how I feel. 

Due to this update, I have begun to contemplate the definition of the word "bliss". Upon looking up the definition on the internet, I came up with this definition which says, "perfect happiness; great joy". Now to me, perfect happiness and great joy seem to be two different things. However, as I have come to examine married life, and life in general, I have come to feel that bliss is the best way to describe my feelings.

Lets dive a little deeper into the meaning of bliss and how it applies to my life now. Perfect denotes completeness and wholeness. Whereas "great joy" denotes joy or pleasure that fills a large amount. When I first met C I would have described my joy as about a 5 due to the fact that I had really good days ranging to really bad days. Thus my joy seemed to only be reaching about 50% of the "great joy" level. However, as our relationship blossomed and almost failed (due to my stupidity and fear.... which is a story for another time) I felt that my joy had reached the 7 or 8 level. I truly was happy all the time and felt that life could not get any better than it was at that moment. 

But life has a way of surprising you. The day C and I were married, my joy shot up to a 10. I remember driving away from the Newport Beach California Temple with C after we had been sealed for time and all eternity thinking that life could not get any better than this. C cried and I cried as we thought about all the possibilities that were ahead of us as we began our lives together. And honestly I was expecting this joy to kind of fade away; like how the joy you feel eating an ice cream sandwich fades away after you have unwrapped the whole bar and realize there is no more ice cream sandwich left. But it surprisingly did not. This joy and happiness or bliss as I now call it has lasted these past 2 months and I know will last throughout the time we spend on earth together and after this life as well. But this is for a very specific reason.

I believe that happiness is found in waking up each morning to the love of my life, squeezing him as he gets out of bed to go to work super early. Happiness is found as I do laundry and clean our little white house everyday. Joy is found as I read the Book of Mormon with C every night and we pray together. Joy is found as I laugh with C as we watch some cheesy Netflix show and I look over to see his dimple prominently showing through as he laughs harder than I think I have ever seen. (which is proven wrong every single time he laughs lol). Happiness is found as I watch C play basketball and dunk the ball after days of practicing. Happiness is getting a sweating hug from C after his proud basketball moments. Now you're probably reading this thinking that wow you are just really in love sis. Well its true! But you know why I am in love and why I will continue to be in love with C? Because I choose to see the joy and happiness in every moment. 

Now I am not saying there aren't days where life is hard. Where the exquisite dinner or dessert I was making turns out to be 100% trash and I feel like a failure. Or when I am so tired and the house is a mess and dinner isn't ready and I have a million things to do that I feel like giving up. Where I feel like I should just lay in my bed and allow everything around me to get continually worse as I do not seem to be making any progress. BUT then I see C and everything gets instantly a little better. And I choose not to wallow in the little failures but to live in the little joys and allow them to fill me. I allow joy to be the driving factor of my life as I would rather live in great joy than in great sorrow. And this is why I am living in bliss. Because I allow myself to. I allow the dimple on my husband's face to allow a smile to spread across my face helping me to bask in the happiness that will one day be perfect. 

I choose to live my life with great joy awaiting the day that my happiness will become perfect. As in Christ my sorrow is swallowed up and so can your's.

that is all. 

xoxo

M