The Happiness Leak . . .

"Happiness in family life is most likely to be achieved when founded upon the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ."
The Family: A Proclamation to the World

Doesn't this picture just FILL you up with HAPPINESS (and these aren't even YOUR crazy kids)?!?!?!?!!? I mean, look at the looks on their faces, the absolute joy, the complete lack of any inhibition. The laughter that comes from deep down in their bellies, the kind you can't help but let out -- no matter how silly or annoying or obnoxious it might sound to other people.  You can feel that they just HAVE TO LAUGH because they are JUST THAT HAPPY! My kids experience it and pull it out of me EVERY DAY! They KNOW happiness!

But you don't get this out of adults as much as you get it from kids. Why is that?

I especially notice this in big cities -- like when I visited Chicago while presenting at a national conference a few years ago. No one looked up -- everyone rushed to and fro on the busy sidewalks, trying to get where they were headed as quickly as possible. And heaven help you if you accidentally bumped into one of them and detained them for even a moment from their course. No one was smiling. No one was talking with their friends or casually making eye contact with, saying hello to, and smiling at the people passing them by.

If you haven't read The Pig of Happiness, I HIGHLY recommend it!!! HIGHLY! My dear friend, Emily, gave it to me for Christmas after the twins were born, and I LOVE LOVE LOVE IT!!!

It's about a pig, a pig that is completely ordinary -- EXCEPT that this pig HATES the mumbling and grumbling that is so naturally the way with other pigs. SO the pig decides to change it!

"I know," thought the pig. "I shall become an EXTRAORDINARY pig! From now on I shall stand for everything that is LIGHT and BEAUTIFUL and TRUE and WONDERFUL. I shall see the BEST in EVERYONE and the BEST in EVERYTHING! I shall become the PIG OF HAPPINESS!"

And the pig DID . . . to the point that the happiness eventually (in a few short pages) seaped out from inside of the pig and was absorbed and reflected by others around it . . . and THEY became happy, too!

And so it goes when we follow Christ! We stand for everything that is LIGHT and BEAUTIFUL and TRUE and WONDERFUL and denounce everything that isn't. And then, we see others as children of God, see the BEST in EVERYONE and the BEST in EVERYTHING!!! And we are HAPPY! Truly HAPPY! And then that happiness spreads . . . it spreads to our children, to our neighborhoods, to our workplaces, to our schools, to our world. Just one bold denouncement of "evil" in all its forms at a time.

Imagine that deep-down-in-the-belly, genuine laughter of happiness echoing all over the streets of this crazy world! Hey -- it could happen!