Good morning, Team! It’s Friday!

Pure, unadulterated joy for me is demonstrated best by a young child who discovers something, like ice cream, for the first time.

Fortunate for all of us, joy is found in many other areas of our life as quoted below:

Consistent with last weeks message on Love,

The greatest joy in life is the experience of sharing love.

-Dr. Margaret Paul

Service

“Well, your greatest joy definitely comes from doing something for another, especially when it was done with no thought of something in return.”

-John Wooden

Purpose

“This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.”

-George Bernard Shaw

Duress

James 1:2-3 NIV 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 produces perseverance.”

The source

“If you want to get warm you must stand near the fire: if you want to be wet you must get into the water. If you want joy, power, peace, eternal life, you must get close to, or even into, the thing that has them. They are not a sort of prize which God could, if He chose, just hand out to anyone.”

-CS Lewis

Joy is all around us; wonder, beauty, discovery, God. Similar to our attitude each morning when we wake, we have to choose it! I could fill a daily blog with rants about everything that has happened to me in life that felt unfair and unjust…it’s a broken world and frankly we all could. Two certain things would come out of that. One, I’d remain stuck looking backwards with unrealistic expectations that dwelling on the negative would somehow make things better. Two, you’d stop reading the blog by the second or third day because no one wants to listen to “a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.”

We live in a world where we get to choose so many things in life.

Choose JOY!

Have a blessed weekend!

Eric