Deliberate Cheerfulness (January 4, 2004)

"Every morning, Pastor, she was singing, singing," Joe said to me in his thick Romanian accent. Joe was grieving his wife Kathryn, who passed away shortly before what would have been their 50th wedding anniversary. I had only known Kathryn in the last couple years of her life, when she was blind, crippled and home-bound except for visits to the hospital for dialysis treatment. Despite her afflictions, she always flashed a bright smile whenever I visited. Her steady cheerfulness was a delight to everyone.

It is pleasant to live with a cheerful person, and a burden to live with a grouch. Don't be a grouch. My father, whenever he came home from work, always walked in from the car whistling some light tune. I guess I took his cheerfulness for granted, and probably didn't realize that for many kids, "Dad's home!" was a signal to run and hide rather than run to the door and greet him. The other day a friend of mine told me that he always hated it when his dad came home, because he would just walk in the door and start finding things to be angry about. What a blight that father left on his son's childhood memories!

A Bible verse I heard often growing up was Proverbs 17:22: "A merry heart doeth good like a medicine, but a broken spirit drieth the bones." Medical research confirms (so I am told) that laughing and singing is good for your health. But it is also good for other people's health too - especially for those who live with you. Your refusal to combat sullenness may "dry the bones" of the very family members you profess to love. So, if you love them, sing like Kathryn Domitro in the morning and whistle like Lowell Lundquist in the evening. Do it even if you don't feel like it. Every good man acts more pleasantly than he feels.