Joy Suckers

This morning in his sermon, Ed came up with a new group of people that you really don't want to emulate. (how do you like that big word???? I THOUGHT you would!!)

He was preaching on Practical Reasons for Gathering together as a church body. One of those reasons was to Encourage. To be encouraged and to encourage. In any gathering or congregation there are always people that are in need of encouragement. Maybe they are down and discouraged, maybe they are in a bind, maybe they've just lost someone they love, so many things can be going on. And they come together with other Christians to get some "courage" to hang in there.

Ed said that you can do two things with courage - you can ENcourage or you can DIScourage. And then came the new name. He said some people are just "joy suckers". You come to church feeling pretty good, and kind of happy, and these people jump right in the middle of you about something and just "suck the joy" right out of you.

He asked the question, "What do these joy suckers do with all the joy they've sucked out of people? They obviously aren't using it themselves. Maybe they just have a big closet someplace that's just crammed with joy that they're not about to share."

I know folks like that, and I'll be you do, too. I hope that none of my friends and relatives reading this are "joy suckers", and I sure hope that I'm not. Bad thing is, if I'm really honest, I kind of think I might be sometimes - especially where Bill is concerned. Why is it that we tend to "suck the joy" out of those that we love the most??

One thing that I know for sure, though, is that Mom was definitely NOT a "joy sucker". My Mom brought joy and happiness to everyone she met. No wonder everyone loved her. Her favorite expression when anyone would ask her how she was, would be to answer "finer than frog hair". No matter if she was hurting or on a walker, or in a wheel chair, she was always "finer than frog hair." Everyone was happier after they'd been around Mom for a while. No difference if you were young or old or anywhere in between.

She loved kids, she loved old people, and of course, she WASN'T one. I remember when a friend of hers here at our church lost her husband. Mother just took it upon herself to sit with her, hold her hand when they came into church from Sunday School, and just love her. They were like two little gray-haired 'peas in a pod'. Both short, both grandmotherly, about a year apart in age. But Mom could always cheer her up, and on sad days, she would reminisce with her because she could remember how she felt when Daddy died.

No, Mother wasn't a "joy sucker".

So, thanks, Ed, for another wonderfully descriptive word that surely is someone we hopefully DON'T want to be.
JB