Journeying to Joy

Welcome/Introduction

My name is Jessie and I am so thankful to be here today with you all and join along side your journey to joy no matter what stage of that process you are on, we are so glad you are here.

I work in full time ministry as a Chaplain within the Prison System. Yall, I can not tell you how absolutely rewarding and fulfilling this calling is. I get the opportunity to join in with so many people as they begin their journey to Joy. For so many this is the first time they have truly seen Jesus. The first time he became real to them.

In January of 2025, God gave me a verse. He gave me Psalm 34:4 and when he first gave that to me I had no idea what 2025 would hold for me or my family, but it was God provision preparing us for the year.

Because like so many of you guys I have to believe that you came to this conference because you want to have joy in your life, the kind that does not run out the kind of joy that is never ending that exchanges heartbreak for joy.

Psalm 34:4

Psalm 34:4 “I sought the Lord, and He heard me, And delivered me from all my fears.”

This verse has been a lifeline for me, an anchor to remember the promises of the Lord in the hard times.

I sought the Lord - when you are seeking, when you are praying, when you are having dark nights by yourself, when you feel like the grief is going to swallow you up, when you don’t see a way out but you are begging God for something

Then there is a comma ....what do we do when get to a comma in the English language we take a breathe right a pause.

For me this is telling me that when I am praying for something to come to fruition and it has not came yet and I feel lost, I feel alone, I feel hurt. Sometimes there is this Gap between our prayer and the answer. I can be reminded that during this Gap, God did not leave me or forsake me. He is right there with me.

Ruach - which means breath, spirit, wind. It is the name for the Holy Spirit. The Hebrew word for breath and spirit are the same.

It was like God was telling me during this pause, during this time where I felt incredibly alone, rejected, unwanted that God was right there with me. That he was the God who sees. We see in Haggars story in Genesis 16 that he is the God who sees me, he is El Roi.

I think sometimes that we thing well he sees so and so because they are pretty special or because they are pretty spiritual or they are better than me in this, but here is the truth.....he sees you! He is with you in the comma, in that gap of our life where we know what the Word of God says but we don’t feel it, he is there wrapping us with his garment and sitting with us in our times or hardship.

And He heard me

Then there is this key section of the verse that says “And he Heard me” some versions say And he Answered me.

We prayed and he heard. That is a promise if we seek him, he hears us. We are going to get an answer, now it may not be the answer we wanted to hear, but an answer is coming and he is sitting with us, he sees us in the mess.

And you know what is so cool about that there is a passage in scripture in Luke 5:12-13 where a leper approaches Jesus and asks to be healed. And do you know what Jesus does, he reaches out his hand and touches him. He touched someone who was seen as the complete bottom of the social class. He was willing to touch someone who society had cast away. Yall, Jesus is not afraid of our mess he is willing to meet us right in the middle of it.

These few passages are cornerstones in correctional ministry because during someone's time in prison they can feel completely cut off and cast away by the outside world. They can feel that they are too far gone and that they are in darkness at an all time low. And I wonder if anyone here feels like that too, feels stuck where they are, feels like they can’t pull themselves out of this hard place.

I was talking to someone this week who has shared her story before about how she has been in hard relationship after hard relationship and the cycle kept continuing until she found herself in federal custody. Now she is reframing how she looks at life. She was telling me this week that she is not qualified to write devotionals or teach the word of God. And I asked her “who told you that?” Because God did not tell her that, she was told that over and over by people that have been added to her Emotional Board of Directors in her mind. Sometimes that comes from your parents when you are little, or friends or your significant other. When we start hearing those voices it is important to ask ourselves is this from God? If it is then keep it and hold tight, because that is truth. But if it not from God if it is not consistent with the word of God, it's time to let that go. It's time we give some eviction notices out to people that do not deserve to be a part of our emotional board of directors.

KATIE AKA Linda

I met Katie through my work at the prison. She told me of a rocky childhood that she had and how that transpired into her early adult years. She was sexually abused by those who were supposed to love her as a child, then her mother left her father and she hoped for a better life but then her mom replaced that with worse men who were cruel. She wanted to be free and to have a different life and then when she grew up and left home she found her self repeating the same cycles that she so badly wanted to escape.

Her story reminds me of a quote from The Body Keeps the Score. I really related a lot to The Body Keeps the Score because society does a lot of victim blaming and it is not accurate. This book is a unique read because it explains to us that our body is physically keeping a record, there are scientific and neurological reasons why we think, act or believe these things.

The quote says....

“If your parents’ faces never lit up when they looked at you, it’s hard to know what it feels like to be loved and cherished. If you come from an incomprehensible world filled with secrecy and fear, it’s almost impossible to find the words to express what you have endured. If you grew up unwanted and ignored, it is a major challenge to develop a visceral sense of agency and self-worth.”

It makes sense scientifically and neurologically why we struggle to break strongholds.

KELLEY

Another lady that I know has an incredible testimony and was In a relationships that was killing her. Her husband forced her to play Russian roulette with a hand gun, where she was seconds away from death and other times he repeatedly raped her with a gun to her head. She would pray for a way out and for the ability to leave. Eventually she ended up with a federal charge because of something she was forced to do for him and while incarcerated gave her life to Christ. During this time he became real to her for the first time in her life. And He completely changed her life. To watch the transformation in her life, was truly such a blessing. To watch her become someone who loves the Lord and is confident in who He calls her to be and knows where her identity comes from, is really so special. She lead worship while she was in prison and I believe living a much fuller life today, then she ever believed was possible. To watch her work through her healing and her trauma and her heartbreak was truly inspiring.

Psalm 22

We talk about about Psalm 23 but often times Psalm 22 gets skipped over. I personally really like Psalm 22 because it shows that we serve a God who wants to hear how we are feeling he wants us to bring our heart break to him.

Psalm 22:14 “I am poured out like water, And all My bones are out of joint; My heart is like wax; It has melted within Me.”

God my heart has completely melted, my heart is so broken, I am so sad that I can not stand it. I want to be thankful for the heartache and grief that I am feeling right now because I know it is narrowing the gap between me and you. The closer I get to you, I know the closer the joy is because I can pull that joy from unending joy. I can walk through fire and not be harmed. I can walk through unimaginable experiences and circumstances and still pull on the joy of the Lord. I am a bit of nerd and there are two forms of theology; formal and functional. Basically formal theology is like your denomination doctrine, etc. Functional Theology is how we live. And there is a gap between what we say we believe and how we live. B/c we are humans. There are seasons when we have a really hard time living out that formal theology. The gap gets bigger, when we fake that we are ok. When we pretend that things are not happening behind closed doors, that doubts are not occurring that we are not hurt or angry or isolated. The gap gets smaller when we say we can not do this on our own. When we are honest with God and say I am barely hanging on I need you.

Today my heart feels like that wax and I know that I am reaching for you and the gap is getting smaller. I am growing closer to you. He is close to the broken hearted, near to us when are lives feel crushed and when we feel defeated.

I do not know about you guys but I am ready to come to the Lord wiht my heartbreak and hand it over to Him and ask him to begin to transform my heart.

SELAH

There is this word I have been studying Selah in scripture. It is a Hebrew word that when translated is the same word, the definition is believed to be a pause, rest, reflection and to lift up.

There is a lot of debate over the actual definition but if you look throughout the book of Psalm you can clearly see a change of heart after the word is used. Alsmot like a time to grieve and voice our feelings and then a time to give God the glory.

Psalm 3:1–4 “Lord, how they have increased who trouble me! Many are they who rise up against me. Many are they who say of me, “There is no help for him in God.” Selah But You, O Lord, are a shield for me, My glory and the One who lifts up my head. I cried to the Lord with my voice, And He heard me from His holy hill. Selah”

I wonder if we are in a place in our story to say God this is what I am struggling with this morning

Selah

And begin a transformation or maybe take the next step in our journey.