Hannah Happytree

This is totally unrelated to the rest of this post, but I just got part of a strawberry
stem in my oatmeal and it was kind of a downer. Not a day ruining one, but spitting out oatmeal is disappointing for me and enjoyable for you to hear and picture. :)

Why am I not at work, you might be wondering? It's 8:54! You're right, normally I am already gone but this week my schedule is a little later so I've had to find things to do to fill up my morning a little bit. So far I've done all the dishes, cleaned my room (AND made the bed), done the laundry and pulled the beached whale cat out from under Sasha's bed. Twice (no small feat - the cat ways 23 pounds, people).

Here's me on Sunday, skipping church to do real life with
Jesus and enjoy Him out on the back roads.

That took an hour so then I was jamming to Rend Collectives 'My Lighthouse,' which I listen to so many times a day right now it's almost (but not quite) embarrassing. While I was jamming and doing a little writing I was thinking about all the stuff God's been teaching me through my life and I figured it might be worth it to someone to hear this:

I think I figured out the purpose of life.

I know that's a pretty big statement. But after a lot of reflection, I think this is it. When I was a little kid, my mom would read a devotional every day to us at breakfast. At the time, we children hated it but my mom was breaking ground and laying the foundation for building blocks in our lives - we just didn't know it yet. High-five, Mom!

Ramble, ramble, I just never get right to the point. No apologies! Okay, the purpose of life! I remember one line from a devotional sticking out to me and thinking - "I should remember this, I think it's important." The line was something like this:

"The purpose of life is to serve God and enjoy Him."

So technically, I didn't come up with the purpose statement, I usurped it. But there you go. Think about it. Your life involves two main people - You and God. It makes sense that your life purpose involve two people too - Serving God and Enjoying Him involves the two of you. You can put anything under this statement - serving others (because you love God and that's a way to serve Him), sitting on your front porch with a delicious beverage (enjoying God). You can break down your whole life into pieces that fit into that. Think about it. You'll see it.

SO Hannah Happytree. I prefer the term 'joyful' to 'happy' because I think it means more and is a deeper-seated emotion, but happy does roll off the tongue pretty nicely. Neither here nor there. I am constantly joyful because I embrace that God created me to serve and enjoy. I encourage you to dwell on that last part. I used to think that to truly be living for Christ I should be in a constant state of martyrdom (isn't that what dying to self means? spoiler alert: it doesn't!), and then Jesus showed me some stuff.

Try it. You'll like it. :)