What is Joy?

Well to keep you up to date from my last post. I was able to make "good tapes" with my friend. It's helped so far... I'm just needing to keep up with it.

I gave my testimony today in speech class.. chapel had a lot to do with the same subject and it got me thinking about Joy. About what it is and what it means to be joyful.
Reaching back into my past to talk to my entire class about it was a little hard to do. It was hard to tap into my experience with depression and think on how I reacted to it. I never ate, I didn't sleep at night and slept all day. I cried every day for 1 1/2 years.... it was not fun.
I think about all the pain I went through and at times I thought God had to have hated me so much to let me endure so much pain.. but that's the thing, I endured... and by Christ's strength alone.

During this time is when I realized there was a difference between happiness and joy. Toward the end of the relationship, as I got even more depressed, I remember knowing the end was coming, but there was a certain day that I felt the most unexplainable joy, a joy that brought me to tears... the reason? Because my God is who He is. I was completely depressed and sad, but I was joyful because my God loved me and had my best interest at heart....

This whole situation gives me hope... hope for the future. I can rest knowing that as I follow God, He will allow me to experience Joy. I trust that in the future, God will create things from my pain.... Beauty.