http://anchor.tfionline.com/post/joy-living/
A compilation
Audio length: 9:33
Download Audio (8.7MB)
When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive—to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.—Marcus Aurelius
*
The subway train sways back and forth, its wheels screeching more fiendishly than ever against the tracks. Outside the window the freezing cold of winter rules and the dreary bay looks like a yawning abyss as the train rumbles across it. The carriage is filled with frozen, self-centered, bored passengers. Good morning!
Suddenly a little boy pushes his way in between discourteous grown-up legs—the kind that only grudgingly make room for you. While his father stays by the door, the boy sits next to the window, surrounded by unfriendly, morning-weary adults. What a brave child, I think. As the train enters a tunnel, something totally unexpected and peculiar happens. The little boy slides down from his seat and puts his hand on my knee. For a moment, I think that he wants to go past me and return to his father, so I shift a bit. But instead of moving on, the boy leans forward and stretches his head up towards me. He wants to tell me something, I think. Kids! I bend down to listen to what he has to say. Wrong again! He kisses me softly on the cheek.
Then he returns to his seat, leans back and cheerfully starts looking out of the window. But I’m shocked. What happened? A kid kissing unknown grown-ups on the train? To my amazement, the kid proceeds to kiss all my neighbors.
Nervous and bewildered, we look questioningly at his father, “He’s so happy to be alive,” the father says. “He’s been very sick.”
The train stops and father and son get [off] and disappear into the crowd. The doors close. On my cheek I can still feel the child’s kiss—a kiss that has triggered some soul-searching. How many grown-ups go around kissing each other from the sheer joy of being alive? How many even give much thought to the privilege of living? What would happen if we all just started being ourselves?
The little boy had given us a sweet but serious slap in the face: Don’t let yourself die before your heart stops!—Dag Retsö
*
It’s not too late to plot and plan—
Do all the secret good you can!
Take young and old folk by surprise,
And scatter stardust in their eyes.
You’ll find there’s greater joy in living
As you share in the thrill of giving.
—Author unknown
*
Oh, how sweet the light of day,
And how wonderful to live in the sunshine!
Even if you live a long time, don’t take a single day for granted.
Take delight in each light-filled hour.
—Ecclesiastes 11:7–81
*
For most of life, nothing wonderful happens. If you don’t enjoy getting up and working and finishing your work and sitting down to a meal with family or friends, then the chances are that you’re not going to be very happy. If someone bases his happiness or unhappiness on major events like a great new job, huge amounts of money, a flawlessly happy marriage or a trip to Paris, that person isn’t going to be happy much of the time. If, on the other hand, happiness depends on a good breakfast, flowers in the yard, a drink, or a nap, then we are more likely to live with quite a bit of happiness.—Andy Rooney
*
You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence.—Psalm 16:112
*
When you rise in the morning, give thanks for the light, for your life, for your strength. Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason to give thanks, the fault lies in yourself.—Tecumseh
*
I’ve started to look at life differently. When you’re thanking God for every little [thing]—every meal, every time you wake up, every time you take a sip of water—you can’t help but be more thankful for life itself, for the unlikely and miraculous fact that you exist at all.—A. J. Jacobs
*
(Prayer:) Thank You for all the little ways in which You bless us, Jesus. Help us not to forget to thank You for all the little things You do to express Your love for us each day. Sometimes we don’t even notice many of Your blessings because we take them for granted. We figure that’s just the way it’s always been, and we don’t remember how great a manifestation of Your love these things are.
Thank You for Your protection in so many ways that we don’t realize. Sometimes we don’t even know that You’ve protected us because we don’t see what could have happened if You hadn’t kept us under the shadow of Your protection. So we thank You for that and praise You for it.
Help us to thank You more often for all the little things, the tiny manifestations of Your love, Your care, and Your safekeeping.
*
“The difference between ‘not enough’ and ‘more than enough’ is your attitude,” noted Bishop T.D. Jakes at a conference I attended in July 1999. … As we live our lives from day to day, it can be easy to take so much of what we have for granted. For example, when we are unhappy in a job and we are looking for a new one, sometimes the last thing that we think to do is to thank God for the job that we dislike. When we want to purchase a new home, it is too rare that we stop to appreciate the roof we currently have over our heads. When we are working to get a “new body,” we should not fail to be thankful for the fact that the one we have right now is able to walk, talk, and breathe. We can get so wrapped up in trying to get what we don’t have that we don’t take time to appreciate what we do have.
I know these things may sound very basic, but it is the most “basic” aspects of our lives, those things that we often don’t even give a second thought to, that we should be most grateful for. It is these “basic” things—people, places, or our well-being—that could devastate us most if we had to live without them. When you come to understand what is most important to you, and then make it a priority in your life to honor and take care of those aspects of your life, then you find your center. Your center is that place you discover when your life is healthy and balanced. It takes some true soul searching to find it, and it takes practice to maintain it. But once you find that peaceful, joyful place called your center, you’ll always feel off balance when you leave it.
One way to stay centered is to count your blessings every day. Why is it important to do it every day? Because it can be too easy to fall into the habit of taking life for granted and feeling sorry for yourself when things don’t go the way you had hoped. By counting your blessings, you remember just how rich you are—in spirit, in family, in friendships, in health, in career, in education, in personality, and the list goes on.
Count your blessings in the mornings. It is a very uplifting way to begin the day. After all, a new day is just one more blessing that you have to be thankful for. Try this exercise: Turn off all the noise around you, and go to a place where you can find as much solitude as possible. Close your eyes. Breathe deeply and slowly. Now think about all that you have to be thankful for. Stay in this quiet state for at least five minutes. When you finish, write down everything that came to mind.
It’s a pretty good list, isn’t it?—Valorie Burton3
Published on Anchor November 2014. Read by Debra Lee.
Footnotes:
1 The Message.
2 NIV.
3 http://www.valorieburton.com/newsletters/archive/2008/20081123.html.
A compilation
Audio length: 9:33
Download Audio (8.7MB)
When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive—to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.—Marcus Aurelius
*
The subway train sways back and forth, its wheels screeching more fiendishly than ever against the tracks. Outside the window the freezing cold of winter rules and the dreary bay looks like a yawning abyss as the train rumbles across it. The carriage is filled with frozen, self-centered, bored passengers. Good morning!
Suddenly a little boy pushes his way in between discourteous grown-up legs—the kind that only grudgingly make room for you. While his father stays by the door, the boy sits next to the window, surrounded by unfriendly, morning-weary adults. What a brave child, I think. As the train enters a tunnel, something totally unexpected and peculiar happens. The little boy slides down from his seat and puts his hand on my knee. For a moment, I think that he wants to go past me and return to his father, so I shift a bit. But instead of moving on, the boy leans forward and stretches his head up towards me. He wants to tell me something, I think. Kids! I bend down to listen to what he has to say. Wrong again! He kisses me softly on the cheek.
Then he returns to his seat, leans back and cheerfully starts looking out of the window. But I’m shocked. What happened? A kid kissing unknown grown-ups on the train? To my amazement, the kid proceeds to kiss all my neighbors.
Nervous and bewildered, we look questioningly at his father, “He’s so happy to be alive,” the father says. “He’s been very sick.”
The train stops and father and son get [off] and disappear into the crowd. The doors close. On my cheek I can still feel the child’s kiss—a kiss that has triggered some soul-searching. How many grown-ups go around kissing each other from the sheer joy of being alive? How many even give much thought to the privilege of living? What would happen if we all just started being ourselves?
The little boy had given us a sweet but serious slap in the face: Don’t let yourself die before your heart stops!—Dag Retsö
*
It’s not too late to plot and plan—
Do all the secret good you can!
Take young and old folk by surprise,
And scatter stardust in their eyes.
You’ll find there’s greater joy in living
As you share in the thrill of giving.
—Author unknown
*
Oh, how sweet the light of day,
And how wonderful to live in the sunshine!
Even if you live a long time, don’t take a single day for granted.
Take delight in each light-filled hour.
—Ecclesiastes 11:7–81
*
For most of life, nothing wonderful happens. If you don’t enjoy getting up and working and finishing your work and sitting down to a meal with family or friends, then the chances are that you’re not going to be very happy. If someone bases his happiness or unhappiness on major events like a great new job, huge amounts of money, a flawlessly happy marriage or a trip to Paris, that person isn’t going to be happy much of the time. If, on the other hand, happiness depends on a good breakfast, flowers in the yard, a drink, or a nap, then we are more likely to live with quite a bit of happiness.—Andy Rooney
*
You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence.—Psalm 16:112
*
When you rise in the morning, give thanks for the light, for your life, for your strength. Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason to give thanks, the fault lies in yourself.—Tecumseh
*
I’ve started to look at life differently. When you’re thanking God for every little [thing]—every meal, every time you wake up, every time you take a sip of water—you can’t help but be more thankful for life itself, for the unlikely and miraculous fact that you exist at all.—A. J. Jacobs
*
(Prayer:) Thank You for all the little ways in which You bless us, Jesus. Help us not to forget to thank You for all the little things You do to express Your love for us each day. Sometimes we don’t even notice many of Your blessings because we take them for granted. We figure that’s just the way it’s always been, and we don’t remember how great a manifestation of Your love these things are.
Thank You for Your protection in so many ways that we don’t realize. Sometimes we don’t even know that You’ve protected us because we don’t see what could have happened if You hadn’t kept us under the shadow of Your protection. So we thank You for that and praise You for it.
Help us to thank You more often for all the little things, the tiny manifestations of Your love, Your care, and Your safekeeping.
*
“The difference between ‘not enough’ and ‘more than enough’ is your attitude,” noted Bishop T.D. Jakes at a conference I attended in July 1999. … As we live our lives from day to day, it can be easy to take so much of what we have for granted. For example, when we are unhappy in a job and we are looking for a new one, sometimes the last thing that we think to do is to thank God for the job that we dislike. When we want to purchase a new home, it is too rare that we stop to appreciate the roof we currently have over our heads. When we are working to get a “new body,” we should not fail to be thankful for the fact that the one we have right now is able to walk, talk, and breathe. We can get so wrapped up in trying to get what we don’t have that we don’t take time to appreciate what we do have.
I know these things may sound very basic, but it is the most “basic” aspects of our lives, those things that we often don’t even give a second thought to, that we should be most grateful for. It is these “basic” things—people, places, or our well-being—that could devastate us most if we had to live without them. When you come to understand what is most important to you, and then make it a priority in your life to honor and take care of those aspects of your life, then you find your center. Your center is that place you discover when your life is healthy and balanced. It takes some true soul searching to find it, and it takes practice to maintain it. But once you find that peaceful, joyful place called your center, you’ll always feel off balance when you leave it.
One way to stay centered is to count your blessings every day. Why is it important to do it every day? Because it can be too easy to fall into the habit of taking life for granted and feeling sorry for yourself when things don’t go the way you had hoped. By counting your blessings, you remember just how rich you are—in spirit, in family, in friendships, in health, in career, in education, in personality, and the list goes on.
Count your blessings in the mornings. It is a very uplifting way to begin the day. After all, a new day is just one more blessing that you have to be thankful for. Try this exercise: Turn off all the noise around you, and go to a place where you can find as much solitude as possible. Close your eyes. Breathe deeply and slowly. Now think about all that you have to be thankful for. Stay in this quiet state for at least five minutes. When you finish, write down everything that came to mind.
It’s a pretty good list, isn’t it?—Valorie Burton3
Published on Anchor November 2014. Read by Debra Lee.
Footnotes:
1 The Message.
2 NIV.
3 http://www.valorieburton.com/newsletters/archive/2008/20081123.html.
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