Dedication
For every woman who has ever felt “not enough.”
You are His delight.
Preface
I never expected joy to be something I would have to go searching for. I grew up hearing that Christians should be joyful, that joy was something you choose, that joy was the proof that God was near. But somewhere along the way, joy became a word that didn’t feel connected to my actual life. I tried to smile, tried to be grateful, tried to be strong — but inside there was a quiet ache I couldn’t name.
This book was born out of that ache. Out of years of striving. Out of carrying shame without knowing that’s what it was. Out of feeling unseen, overwhelmed, and unsure of how to “choose joy” when everything inside me felt too tired to rise.
But then God met me in a way I didn’t expect — not with instruction, not with pressure, not with disappointment — but with a tender, lifting hand. With a voice that whispered, “Look up… let Me hold your face… let My delight be the truth you see.” It broke something open in me — something I didn’t even realize was still bracing for disappointment, still hiding behind downward eyes, still afraid to be seen.
What you’re about to read is the story of that breaking-open. Of how God’s loving gaze became the safest place for me to rediscover joy. Of how neuroscience helped me understand why joy had felt impossible for so long. And of how Scripture revealed that joy and delight are woven together — and that God’s face has been turned toward me all along.
This is my journey toward joy — not the loud, bubbly kind, but the quiet, strengthening presence of Love restoring what shame once stole.
If you, too, have lived with your head down —
If you’ve felt unseen, unworthy, or not enough —
If joy feels like something always meant for other people —
This book is for you.
Come with me.
Lift your face.
Let Him look at you with love.
Let’s rediscover joy — through His gaze.
PART I — THE BREAKING OPEN
Why Joy Felt Impossible
For years, joy was a concept I couldn’t quite grasp. People told me it was simple — that joy was “hope fulfilled,” or that joy meant keeping Jesus first, Others second, Yourself last. I tried to make those definitions work. I recited them. I clung to them. But they never felt like they reached the places inside me that were crying out for something deeper.
Joy felt especially distant during seasons that felt overwhelming: navigating a high-conflict divorce, parenting neurodivergent children, moving out of the life my girls and I loved in Colorado and into my parents’ home in Arizona. I was trying to hold everything together, but inside I felt like I was unraveling. I believed in hope, believed in God’s promises, believed in Scripture — and yet joy felt out of reach.
Sometimes I would think of Paul writing from prison about rejoicing always and wonder, What am I missing? Why can’t I feel joy the way he did? What am I doing wrong?
I tried harder. I prayed more. I searched for anything that would help me generate joy. But the more I tried, the further joy drifted.
Looking back now, I can see:
I wasn’t failing spiritually.
I was exhausted emotionally.
My nervous system was overwhelmed.
And deep down, I didn’t know how to receive love.
Joy wasn’t missing.
My ability to receive joy was.
This realization came slowly, like a tender whisper breaking through years of noise — and everything began to change when God spoke identity over me in a way I had never experienced before.
The Identity Exchange
When I asked God who He says I am, I expected something vague or symbolic. Instead, I heard a single word:
“Precious.”
Something in me recoiled. Instantly my mind filled with protests:
I’m a mess. I’ve failed. I can’t keep up. I’m not enough. I’m too much. I’m all the wrong things.
The shadow identity surfaced before I could stop it.
How could I be precious?
Then came a gentleness I didn’t expect:
“Live as loved.”
“Relax… look up… let Me hold your face.”
The moment He said that — the moment I saw in prayer the image of His hands gently lifting my chin — something inside me broke open. Tears came before I could swallow them back. Not soft tears — deep, shaking ones. The kind that come from a place you haven’t touched in years.
My honest thought was:
“That’s impossible.”
How could He delight in me?
How could I bring Him joy?
How could He want me to lift my face when I had spent my whole life looking down?
But He didn’t withdraw.
He didn’t correct me.
He didn’t criticize my disbelief.
His presence stayed steady. His voice remained soft.
“Let Me hold your face.”
“Let Me look at you with love.”
“You bring Me joy.”
It wasn’t loud.
It wasn’t dramatic.
But it touched something so deeply hidden that I didn’t know how starved I was to hear those words.
That moment became the hinge on which my entire understanding of joy began to turn.
The Tears That Heal
As I sat with the Lord in that moment, I realized:
I had spent years bracing — waiting for correction, disappointment, disapproval.
I didn’t know how to receive delight.
I didn’t know how to be seen without shame.
I didn’t know how to let someone lift my face.
All my life, I had looked down — at the floor, at my feet, at anything that kept me from being fully seen. It was safer to stay small. To stay unnoticed. To avoid the risk of rejection.
So when God gently lifted my chin in that identity exchange, it touched the exact place in me where shame had lived for decades. Even now, I’m still learning how to believe this and rest in it. But each time I return to that image — God’s hands lifting my face — something in my body softens. Something loosens. Something begins to heal.
Isaiah 62:4 suddenly felt like it was being spoken directly to me:
“Never again will you be called ‘Forsaken’ or ‘Desolate.’
Your new name will be ‘The Lord’s Delight.’”
I didn’t realize how desperately I needed that name.
This was the beginning — not of joy as an emotion, but joy as a homecoming.
PART II — THE THEOLOGY OF JOY AND DELIGHT
Joy Is Not One Feeling
The more I studied Scripture, the more I realized that “joy” in English barely scratches the surface. There are over a dozen Hebrew and Greek words we translate simply as joy:
simchah — shared gladness, communal celebration
chedvah — joy that gives strength
gil — to spin or leap for joy
chara — delight that flows from grace
rinnah — joyful shouting
sason — exultation
ranan — to sing for joy
Joy is not one feeling —
it’s a family of experiences rooted in love, safety, and connection.
Scripture never presents joy as a command to “feel happy.”
Joy is relational.
Joy is embodied.
Joy is born when we are seen and safe.
This is why joy had felt impossible:
My heart didn’t feel safe enough to receive it.
My nervous system was in survival mode.
My identity was tied to shame, not delight.
Zephaniah 3:17 became a turning point:
“He will rejoice over you with gladness…
He will quiet you with His love…
He will rejoice over you with singing.”
The words for rejoice and gladness in Hebrew overlap with delight.
God is not indifferent.
He is not emotionally distant.
He rejoices over me — with singing.
This is joy — not something I produce, but something He offers from His own heart toward mine.
God’s Delight in Me
For most of my life, I thought God tolerated me. Loved me in a theological way. Saved me out of mercy. But delighted in me? Rejoiced over me? Sang because of me?
That was harder to believe.
But Scripture reveals this again and again:
“The Lord delights in you” (Isaiah 62:4)
“He rescued me because He delighted in me” (Psalm 18:19)
“The Lord takes pleasure in His people” (Psalm 149:4)
He ran to the prodigal… filled with compassion and joy (Luke 15)
Delight is not a metaphor.
It is God’s emotional posture toward me.
And joy is what rises in me when I dare to believe Him.
The Lifted Face
The image of God lifting my face is not just something I imagined — it is deeply biblical.
“The Lord make His face shine upon you.” (Numbers 6)
“You are the lifter of my head.” (Psalm 3:3)
“Those who look to Him are radiant, and their faces are never covered with shame.” (Psalm 34:5)
“Seek My face.” (Psalm 27:8)
In the ancient world, lifting someone’s face meant restoring honor, identity, and belonging.
When God lifted my face, He was restoring something shame had stolen.
This became the foundation of joy for me —
not choosing joy,
not faking joy,
but letting God lift my face.
When Joy Feels Impossible: What Shame Does to the Body
For a long time, I believed my inability to feel joy was a spiritual problem. I thought if I just prayed harder or trusted more deeply, joy would eventually appear — because that’s what I’d always been told joy was: something mature Christians should be able to choose.
But inside, joy felt far away. Some days it felt almost unreachable. Especially during the years when life felt shaky — navigating a painful divorce, parenting children with unique needs, moving away from the home we loved, and trying to hold everything together while feeling like I was falling apart.
During those seasons, I remember wondering why joy seemed to come so easily to other people. Why could they rejoice, like Paul, even in hardship — while I felt like I was barely surviving? What was wrong with me?
It took me years, therapy, and the gentle voice of God to discover the truth:
There was nothing wrong with me.
My nervous system was overwhelmed.
Shame had been quietly shaping how my body felt long before I even had language for it. And shame does something very specific to the body — something Scripture has been describing for thousands of years.
Shame lowers the face.
It pulls the eyes downward.
It collapses the chest.
It quiets the voice.
It curls us inward so we take up less space.
I didn’t understand this at the time, but I had been living with a lowered face — literally and emotionally — for decades. Not because I wanted to hide, but because my body had learned that hiding felt safer.
Curt Thompson writes in The Soul of Shame that shame is not just an emotion; it’s a whole-body experience that tells us we are unworthy of being seen. It interrupts our ability to connect — with God, with others, even with our own hearts. It fragments the brain, cutting us off from the parts that allow for hope, curiosity, creativity, and yes — joy.
And Brené Brown says something similar:
“Shame cannot survive being seen.”
Which means shame thrives in the exact posture I lived in for so long — head down, eyes lowered, heart bracing for disappointment.
So when God said to me, “Look up… let Me hold your face… you bring Me joy,” He wasn’t simply giving me comforting words.
He was touching the deepest, most tender place shame had taken root.
He was restoring what shame had interrupted — connection.
That’s why joy felt impossible for so long.
Not because I lacked faith.
Not because I was doing anything wrong.
Not because I didn’t love God.
Joy felt impossible because my body was in survival mode.
And survival mode cannot access joy.
This is not a character flaw.
It’s how God designed the body to protect us.
Aundi Kolber calls this “body kindness” — the simple truth that we cannot bully our way into emotional health. We must approach our wounded places with gentleness.
This is where my journey into joy truly began — with the realization that I needed compassion, not correction.
And that God was offering it.
The Biology of Joy: How God Designed Us for Delight
As I began to learn about the nervous system, something inside me softened. For the first time, joy started to make sense — not as a command I couldn’t follow, but as something my body needed help receiving.
According to Polyvagal Theory, our nervous system has three main states:
1. Fight/Flight — “I must protect myself.”
The body is energized, alert, scanning for danger.
2. Freeze/Collapse — “It’s too much. I can’t.”
The body shuts down, disconnects, goes numb.
3. Connection/Safety — “I’m okay. I’m not alone.”
The body rests, opens, and becomes capable of joy.
Joy is only possible in the third state.
This means…
joy is a physiological experience.
A felt sense of safety, belonging, and delight.
So if life experiences push us into fight, flight, or freeze for long periods of time — which high-stress seasons, trauma, chronic disappointment, or emotional strain often do — the body simply cannot access joy.
Not because we don’t want joy.
But because we can’t feel safe enough for joy to rise.
This was me.
For years.
And then — everything changed when God met me in my identity exchange and gently lifted my face. I didn’t recognize it at the time, but He was doing something profoundly biological:
He was inviting my nervous system into safety.
God was offering the very thing my body needed in order to feel joy.
He was offering attunement.
Attunement is the process by which one person’s face, tone, and presence create safety in another. It’s how infants experience joy — through a loving caregiver whose face lights up at their presence.
Joy literally forms in the brain through faces.
When a baby sees a parent’s warm, delighted expression, their brain releases chemicals that tell the body:
You are safe.
You belong.
You matter.
You bring joy.
The right brain — which processes identity, connection, and emotion — develops through these tiny moments of shared delight.
This is why the Hebrew concept of God’s face shining toward us is so powerful.
“The Lord make His face shine upon you.”
(Numbers 6)
“Those who look to Him are radiant.”
(Psalm 34:5)
“You are the lifter of my head.”
(Psalm 3:3)
These aren’t abstract blessings.
They are declarations of neurobiological truth:
When we perceive a loving face turned toward us, the body shifts into a state where joy can grow.
God built joy right into our wiring.
He designed us to experience joy through relational connection — especially through His.
When God Heals the Nervous System: Joy as Co-Regulation
There’s a term in neuroscience called co-regulation — the process by which a calm, loving presence helps a dysregulated nervous system return to safety.
It’s how infants learn to soothe.
How children learn resilience.
How adults heal from trauma.
How the body learns trust.
Co-regulation is the foundation of emotional health.
And this, I believe, is what God was offering me when He said:
“Relax… look up… let Me hold your face.”
He wasn’t asking me to will joy into existence.
He was offering His presence as the source of joy.
He was saying:
“Let My steadiness regulate your fear.
Let My delight rewrite your shame.
Let My gaze calm your nervous system.”
This is Divine attunement.
This is Emmanuel — God with us — in the most embodied way.
As I’ve returned to that moment again and again, something shifts inside me each time:
My shoulders drop.
My breath slows.
My chest opens.
My mind becomes quieter.
My heart softens.
This is not imagination.
This is how the nervous system responds to safety.
And Scripture confirms it:
“He will quiet you with His love.”
(Zephaniah 3:17)
“In Your presence is fullness of joy.”
(Psalm 16:11)
Not in my performance.
Not in my striving.
Not in my effort.
Not in my ability to choose joy.
In His presence.
Joy is not a task — it is a response.
It grows where love is received.
And perhaps the most astonishing part is this:
God always begins the joy story by revealing His joy first.
He delights in us —
and our joy rises as a reflection of His.
This is co-regulation.
This is the healing of shame.
This is the transformation I never knew was possible.
PART IV — LEARNING TO LIVE AS DELIGHTED
Receiving the Loving Gaze of God
I am learning — slowly, gently — that joy begins not in striving but in softening.
Not in effort but in receiving.
Not in positivity but in presence.
When I let God’s gaze rest on me, something inside me shifts. When the lie of “not enough” resurfaces, I’m learning to pause and attune to His voice:
“Live as loved.”
“Relax… look up.”
“You bring Me joy.”
I’m not creating inner safety.
I’m responding to the safety God is creating in me.
This is how joy grows.
Healing Shame Through Joy
Shame lowers the head.
Love lifts it.
Shame hides.
Love reveals.
Shame isolates.
Love connects.
Shame says, “You are not enough.”
God says, “You are precious to Me.”
And joy — true joy — is born when shame loses its authority and love begins to rewrite the story.
Joy as a Lifestyle, Not a Feeling
Joy is not a momentary emotion.
Joy is a way of living — a posture of being held.
Joy means:
I am safe.
I am seen.
I am delighted in.
I belong.
Joy is the quiet strength that grows when I lean into God’s loving gaze day after day.
PART V — LIVING AS THE DELIGHTED
How Identity Transforms a Life
When I began to believe — even a little — that I am precious to God, that I bring Him joy, something began to shift in every part of my life:
Parenting
I parent from connection, not fear.
From presence, not pressure.
From delight, not performance.
Relationships
I shrink less.
I apologize less.
I breathe more.
I choose healthier people.
I show up with an open face.
Work
I no longer work to prove worth.
I work from worth.
Creativity flows again.
Community
I let myself be seen.
I lift my head.
I belong.
My Body
My nervous system calms.
My breath deepens.
Hope rises.
Joy becomes possible again.
Hope Returns
Hope did not return because my circumstances changed.
Hope returned because I changed inside my circumstances.
Hope is the fruit of joy.
Joy is the fruit of love.
Love flows from God.
This is the divine sequence of healing:
Love → Joy → Hope
And it begins with a lifted face.
A Life That Reflects His Gaze
When God lifts your face, you begin to walk differently.
You look up.
You meet the world with open eyes instead of downward shame.
Your nervous system softens.
Your heart expands.
Joy no longer feels impossible — it becomes the quiet strength you carry into every place you go.
This is how living loved changes everything.