Joy in the Journey by Julie De Azevedo

This is actually a post I did over a year ago, but I decided to go ahead and post it:)

As I was preparing my lesson for Sunday for the 12-13 year old young women I teach I came across a song I have had for a quite a while. After I finish reading through my lesson a couple times, the first thing I go to is my plethora of music. Music always inspires me to go the direction the Spirit would have me go, to teach the girls what they need to hear. The lesson is on Finding Joy Now. How can we find joy now, among all the turmoil of the world around us? Each of us go through constant change in our lives, whether it be good change or bad change, quick change or slow change. It is up to us to find joy among that change. The song I turned to immediately was from the 1998 EFY cd. The theme that year was Joy in the Journey. This song has so many profound phrases in it. Phrases that remind us that, as rough, confusing, and frustrating that this life, this journey can be, there is always joy to be found in it. Here are words to the chorus:

there is joy in the journey, joy in the climb

twisting and turning, reaching for the open sky

carving out each footstep in the struggling we find,

there is joy in the journey

there is hope, there is peace, there is joy in the journey

Here is a great quote from the lesson I was preparing:

"This is our one and only chance at mortal life—here and now. The longer we live, the greater is our realization that it is brief. Opportunities come, and then they are gone. I believe that among the greatest lessons we are to learn in this short sojourn upon the earth are lessons that help us distinguish between what is important and what is not. I plead with you not to let those most important things pass you by as you plan for that illusive and nonexistent future when you will have time to do all that you want to do. Instead, find joy in the journey—now." President Thomas S. Monson, Nov. 2008

Here's a video I found on YouTube with this song, and its lyrics, enjoy. And remember to find Joy in your Journey.

The Robe, Mercy River

I was looking through my iTunes for a song for my lesson at church today, and I happened upon this song. I, of course, had heard it many times before since its on one of my Mercy River albums, but this time it made me stop, listen, and feel it. Maybe it's because I've had something deep on my mind lately, but I heard it in a different light today. This song is about the women who touched the hem of Jesus Christ's clothes as he walked by in a large crowd. He felt that tiny bit of faith touch him, turned around, and ultimately healed her.
This women had so much faith that she only needed to touch the hem of His clothes to be healed. This song has more of a story than this, but this is the part in particular that gave me these thoughts....

How do we have that much faith? Do we reach out, simply needing to touch to be healed? How many people did Jesus walk by during his ministry, that simply let him walk by without even trying to reach out to Him...maybe out of fear or being stubborn and unwilling? They surely must have felt a sense of his heavenly power as He walked by....they simply needed to have faith to be healed. We simply need to have faith to reach out to him to be made whole. We may not all suffer from physical ailments, but we all suffer from something- and we can be made whole, if we reach to him, allow him to heal us, and wrap us in his robe of warmth, safety, forgiveness, compassion, love, peace, comfort, and joy.

The Robe, by Mercy River

faithful women

reached through the crowd

and her hands gently touched your robe

and you through your grace made her whole

now my broken body, is fading fast

and like her, i'm searching through the crowds

desperate to find you somehow

and i'm reaching for that robe

i know that you can make me whole

but if its not meant to be that way

if i can't stay, then just wrap me in that robe

and hold me when i go

if you call me, home to you

please help those who love me understand

we are still held together by your hands

i'm reaching for that robe

i know that you can make me whole

but maybe in a different way

if i can't stay, then just wrap me in that robe

and hold me when i go

hold her when she goes.



Let Him hold you, heal you, and make you whole.

*This song is from the Mercy River album released in 2008 titled "Mercy River".