Is it OK to say you are enjoying life? With all the brokenness and suffering, it can feel rather callous to feel joy, take time to play, choose to laugh. Happiness visits, but pain is never far off. It tugs at our joy, weighing us down and reminding us that even if our current moment is light, others have overwhelming burdens… and perhaps instead of enjoying the moment we should be grieving and lamenting. As we learned in the classic film The Princess Bride, “Life is pain. Anyone who says differently is selling something.” Pain is real, and it isn’t going away until the age to come. So how do we balance enjoying the good times, despite the bad? Such questions can run us in circles.
In this episode of Persuasion, Erin Straza and Hannah Anderson invite Trillia Newbell to share her insight and unravel some of the confusion in regard to enjoying life. Trillia’s latest book is titled Enjoy: Finding the Freedom to Delight Daily in God’s Good Gifts (Waterbrook Multnomah), in which she explores ways we can experience joy despite the reality of pain. Find insight for savoring small joys without discounting the brokenness of the world, and then pop out to Twitter @PersuasionCAPC to answer the question of day.
Listen to Persuasion Episode 94:
Links from Persuasion Episode 94:
Trill Newbell Official Site
Enjoy: Finding the Freedom to Delight Daily in God’s Good Gifts, by Trillia Newbell
Theme music by Maiden Name.