Article February 22, 1993 ISSUE

A reason to rejoice

You don't have to wait to be happy. Joy is your divine right—now!

Joni Overton

Do you ever feel as if you need a reason to be glad? That there's nothing in your life to be happy about? I know I've felt that way. Conflicting messages about happiness abound in the world today, messages that tell us we have to have certain things to be happy, certain people in our lives, a certain kind of career. Many of us have already found, however, that people, jobs, and things don't satisfy a deep inner hunger for permanent satisfaction and peace.

So where do we look? The book of Jeremiah represents God as saying, "I will turn their mourning into joy, and will comfort them, and make them rejoice from their sorrow." And in Psalms we find: "Hear, O Lord, and have mercy upon me: Lord, be thou my helper. Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing: thou hast put off my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness." We can identify with the heartfelt prayer of the Psalmist as we, too, expectantly turn to God.

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