Joy is Your Choice.
You are not a victim of your circumstances.

“Always be full of joy in the Lord . . .Don't worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.Then you will experience God's peace, which exceeds anything we can understand.” Philippians 4:4-7

Reflect

This verse, along with Matthew 6, is probably the most important verse in the Bible regarding worry. About worry, the Bible basically says, “don’t”. But the Bible doesn’t leave it at that. In this passage we are told that there’s something we can do to train ourselves to replace worry with trust and confidence and peace. That something is to replace worry with prayer. When I’m worried (which has a lot to do with control which is mostly an illusion anyway) I’m told to turn the worry into a prayer telling God what I’m worrying about. Next I’m told to review how I’ve lived by God’s grace all of my life and to thank him for that, thereby gaining confidence that God can be trusted. Then there’s the beginning of something new that shows up. . . . . . a sense of peace that begins to appear, momentary and fleeting at first, but then as we follow the practice outlined in these verses, our sense of peace grows in proportion.
 
Again, we see that part of the process of becoming Christ-like is in our hands. It’s a discipline which is something that we do which opens us up to that which only God can do. Our discipline makes nothing happen, rather it positions us in such a way that God can do something we could never do without Him.