HIDDEN BATTLES PODCAST “JOY … WHERE ARE YOU?” (EPISODE #12)

Hey everybody, I’m Anne-Marie Michaelis, a Christian author and coach. Welcome to the Hidden Battles Podcast, a weekly podcast about the hidden battles of spiritual warfare and the struggles that go on in our minds and hearts, and the truth to overcoming these hidden battles. My life was radically transformed during a supernatural encounter with Jesus.

God allowed my eyes to be spiritually opened long enough to see the truth of these hidden battles and to scare the rebellion against him right out of me. In each episode, I share a true story about a real life experience, a teaching, and a final takeaway. This podcast will reveal the hidden battles that lurk in our minds and hearts, and the way out.

Hidden Battles, revealing what the enemy does not want you to know. Please take a moment to follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and subscribe to my channel on

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In this episode of “Joy … Where Are You?” I’ll be sharing how joy has been a fleeting thing in my life, but how I tasted it the other day, unlike any other form of joy ever before, and I’d like to share what “Joy … Where Are You?” means to me. So this story is about joy and it’s also about when you don’t have joy.  The timeline of my joy from the world and others is what I will go over with you first, and what can steal our joy. I’ll share with you what was stealing my joy, and at the end I’ll share how we even maintain our joy during our struggles.

My experience of joy when it was focused on the world and even other people started in my early years, and the only joy I remember early on was playing sports, especially baseball, and really any other sport or competitive physical activity, I would get joy, but baseball was it for me. I would get a feeling of super joy because even if things were not going well, I would still feel this emotion of “this is so much fun and I am so happy,” and I called that joy when I was playing baseball.

I still didn’t have peace. There was no peace in my early years. I always remember feeling very unsettled. Growing up, there was a lot of arguing in my house, and I struggled to feel any sense of peace. The incident when I was eleven and sexually assaulted by the six boys in the neighborhood only reinforced the lack of peace and joy. But it could still be found somewhat, like I said in baseball.

Now in my teens to early 20s, I noticed that being in the water, especially up north on the lake or in the quiet of my property, when I was more in my 20s, would bring me joy mixed in with a little tiny bit of peace, but not a consistent peace. There were depressive episodes and so there was still a struggle for peace even though I’d get a little tiny bit of peace when I would be either up north on the lake or out in the woods or on my property, just out there with nature.

So in those two seasons of my life, the early years and my teens to early 20s, what was stealing my peace and joy?  I would say all the arguing, anger, the sexual assault, for sure. The enemy was at work not just in my life but all of our lives, and none of us knew it.

During my mid-20s and early 30s, I spent a tremendous amount of time with my children. I believe I had my identity wrapped up in them, and my joy came from them primarily as I wasn’t playing baseball anymore at that point. I was working out, but the joy seemed much less at that point, so even doing my workouts and staying physically active didn’t bring me much joy. It was mainly my boys.

As a stay-at-home mom, I was doing a lot of cooking and cleaning, caring for the house, caring for the property, the yard, and the kids. That was my primary focus, and I cannot say I didn’t have any peace at that point, but I can’t remember having any peace either, so I wasn’t focused on whether I was having peace. I was so busy just juggling everything at that point in my life. I was hyperfocused on the boys so peace wasn’t a thing in my mind or heart, and my joy was pretty much wrapped up in my kids. I loved being around my kids, so in my early and mid 20s, and even early 30s, it was pretty much me and the kids. My husband at that time was working long hours, so it was me and the kids and I had a lot of joy from that.

Going into the season of my life where I would call it between my 30s, late 30s, early 40s, or early to mid 40s.  I don’t think I had any joy.  I had to start learning who I was apart from the kids after the divorce. Not all the time, but considering I was always with them before the divorce, every other weekend was pretty lonely. Joy was pretty much fleeting and nonexistent at this point. I was putting myself through college, and figuring out how to make money with my degree was my primary goal.  I could barely make ends meet during this season, so there was no joy.  My stress was way up and there was no peace at this point in my life.

So what was stealing my peace and joy during that season? Sadness in the boy’s eyes from the divorce, stress, trying to figure out how to get my degree and make money, fear of the unknown, and still the enemy at work, and me not knowing it.

Moving into my mid-40s, my career took off and I was finally financially stabilized. The kids were primarily doing their thing with sports and college. There were a lot of empty nest feelings going on. The sadness was pretty high during that time. I had a lot of toxic relationship addiction patterns that I was starting to notice and I didn’t know how to get out of (and I share a lot of that in previous episodes). There was massive spiritual warfare going on during that time as well.  I would say no joy ever and no peace ever. At this point my fear was up, confusion was up, anxiety was up, and honestly I think I went through a period where I thought I was losing my mind by what I was seeing and hearing and experiencing with the spiritual warfare.

I would say there was no joy in my life at that point that season. So what was stealing the peace and joy in my life during that season? For sure anger, violence, abuse, loneliness, toxicity, spiritual warfare, confusion, fear, anxiety.  The enemy was still at work, and I was starting to see glimpses of the truth at that point, but there was still no joy.

Again, “Joy … Where Are You?” It’s the title of this episode, but I was at this point in my life, 40, and I can’t say that I truly experienced what I will get to, which will be pure joy.

I had little glimpses of what most people would say about being happy here and there, but not anything like what I will share with you in a little bit.

Now moving into my late 40s, I was saved and delivered literally by Jesus. Instant peace was finally there. I had instant peace when that happened, surpassing anything I’ve ever experienced.  I still have that peace, so that is awesome, and I am so grateful for the peace I feel after that encounter with Jesus and walking with him, God, and the Holy Spirit. That is fantastic, and I am very grateful for that, but you know, to be honest, there was still no joy during my late 40s.

I was focused on work non-stop. My stress increased even more, and in the later part of my 40s, I met my husband, who was and is such a blessing. But again stress was increasing. I was focused on money and focused on work. I cannot say I was experiencing joy.

So what was stealing my joy at this point? Again, stress, anxiety, not being fully surrendered in all areas of my life to Jesus, which gives the enemy a foothold in parts of our life, and that’s what was happening. That’s what is still happening regarding the joy, because if the Holy Spirit is not controlling it, it’s being controlled by something else (yourself, someone else, or the enemy).

I procrastinate on joy. Part of me wonders if I’m believing a lie from the enemy that just lingers inside my mind and heart like “you don’t deserve joy” or something. But anyways, joy has been a struggle for me because it went on for so long without my having experienced it. 

I want to break into what joy, happiness, and peace do to us physically because there’s a physical portion to this, and there’s a physical portion to it if you are not feeling it, supposing you’re feeling the opposite of joy.

So joy, happiness, and peace, if we clump them all together, you have balance in the chemicals in your body that build up your body systems.  That’s how God designed us.

But, if you have the opposite. Say you have sadness, depression, stress, and anxiety.  What does that do to us physically? That creates imbalances in our chemicals and that breaks down the body systems. It’s a lot of stress hormones involved in that, when you

have those kind of emotions, and that is part of what Satan does to steal, kill, and destroy. He destroys our body. How simple is that right? Think about all the stress, anxiety, depression, sadness, going on right now. What a great way to indirectly allow people to destroy themselves by leading them into chaos. 

So let me share this incident with you. I don’t know what to call this, but it was fantastic. This was February 2025, so last month. I had a strange experience in the basement. I went downstairs to work out and was supposed to do strength training. I had just heard a new Christian song and I downloaded it. The song had an excellent beat and was uplifting, so I put it on the Bose radio. All of a sudden something weird was happening. I love to practice my martial arts, so the next thing I knew I was doing jump combinations with spin kicks. That turned into a mix of dancing which I don’t do. Then it was dancing, jump kick combos, worship, praying, and praising.  Half the time my eyes were closed. I felt light and I wasn’t sure what was happening. My arms were up praising, which I’m usually very conservative, so this was wild in my mind because it was a mix of praise, praying, worship, dancing, and jump kick combos, which all felt normal in a strange way. I want to say normal, but customized for me. In those moments I was laughing and smiling because I felt pure joy. Just pure joy.

For someone that’s felt evil breathing down their back for so long, pure joy feels like nothing this world can give. Maybe pure joy results from perseverance and testing our faith as James 1: 2-4 says? I don’t know. But I know that releasing myself to the Holy Spirit in those moments allowed a pure joy that I have never experienced like that before. It was challenging to surrender like that, but it was not. It was more like saying to yourself “get out of the way self, and let Him take over for a while” or maybe kind of

like telling yourself “hey take a rest from all that thinking that you’re doing and just let Him take over and see how that goes.”

Let me read you what James 1:2-4 from the NIV translation says.

“Consider it pure joy my brothers and

sisters whenever you face Trials of many

kinds because you know that the testing

of your faith produced

perseverance let per perseverance finish

its work in you so that you may be

mature and complete not lacking in

anything

So the bottom line to get pure joy for me, which was PURE JOY, was a mixture of worship, praise, prayer, laughter, and singing uplifting godly music. You can go outside in nature, in the woods, on the lake, and just surrender to the Holy Spirit and let him

lead. Even if you feel weird or out of sorts. Let Him lead you to movement, to worship. If that’s your thing, and have fun. This should be like doing our workouts, if you cannot do this daily, do it at least three times a week (which is the minimum for a maintenance workout) or better yet, five days a week to get in shape before going on your maintenance program.

Feel the spirit of heaviness or depression coming down on you? The spirit of confusion? The spirit of fear? The spirit of doubt? The spirit of anxiety? The spirit of anger? Do your thing and ask the Holy Spirit to take you over to get rid of it. Remember, resist the devil and he will flee.  Yell a loud no to the devil and a yes to God.  Let him take over for a few.

Pure joy like this is an addiction you want to have and you’ll want to chase after. It’s an intoxication you’ll want more and more of that doesn’t leave you hung over puking in a toilet but instead re-energized mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually.

How much pure joy would I have experienced in my life, if I let Him take over in all the struggles, anxiety, stresses, depression, anger, loneliness, abuse, and so on?  What would have been different if I surrendered to Jesus and allowed the Holy Spirit to lead me out of my darkness?  My whole life would have been different.  I would know pure joy.  I wouldn’t be just now getting a taste of it. 

I can tell you my life changed only when I surrendered to Jesus, but I want more of this pure joy, a fruit of the Holy Spirit. To think I’m good and just be grateful that I have peace now, when God’s word says He has other fruit for believers who trust and follow

Christ, one of which is joy. For someone who has not experienced much joy, heck yes, lead me to pure joy!

Let me ask you, do you want to experience pure joy? Do you want pure joy even when you’re struggling?

Here’s five tips:

1. First, surrender to Jesus
2. Repent of your sins
3. Trust in God’s promises
4. Choose to be joyful in the Lord no matter what
5. Remember this, pure joy comes as a gift from God, it’s not focused on circumstances, it’s focused on faith. It’s not focused on us, it’s focused on God. It’s not focused on earthly things, it’s focused on spiritual heavenly things.

If you haven’t surrendered to Christ and are ready to start walking down the path and chasing after pure joy, let’s pray a Prayer of Salvation and begin your commitment to walk with Jesus and accept him as your Lord and Savior. Let him into your mind, heart, and every facet of your life. Pray this prayer with me; with all your mind and heart.

Heavenly Father, I come to you as a sinner in need of Your grace. I repent of my sins and confess openly with my lips that Jesus is my Lord and Savior. I believe in my heart that He died and rose from the grave for my sins. Lord Jesus, I invite you into my life and ask for the Holy Spirit to dwell in my heart; to be my teacher, counselor, comforter, and helper in all areas of my life. May Your will be done in my life. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.   

If you prayed this prayer of salvation, this is the first step and a very important and good step in beginning your walk with Jesus.  Relationships take effort and communication, so just as this episode was about prayer – keep the communication channel open with Jesus so you can start building your relationship and hear what He has in store for you.  Get into His Word (the Bible) so you know for yourself what He says as He can speak through His Word directly to YOU! 

Hey, friends, that wraps up today’s Hidden Battles Podcast. A transcript along with additional devotionals for this week’s podcast, as well as my memoir, are available for free download on my website at goddesign.org, or check out some of my other books that you may find helpful. If you liked this episode, please share with others.

Hidden Battles, revealing what the enemy does not want you to know. Never stop praying, never give up, and I’ll see you next week.”