Sermon Central
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Joy Is Black
Contributed by Freddy Fritz on Sep 10, 2009 (message contributor)
JOY IS BLACK
I recently read the following letter that was sent to Dr. Michael Youssef, pastor of The Church of the Apostles in Atlanta. The letter was sent by Mrs. Lane, who has been a primary school teacher for 38 years:
Dear Michael,
One day I was trying to teach my students the difference between happiness and joy. They seemed to understand, so I suggested that maybe they could write about the color of happiness and the color of joy and then tell some of the things that they thought would bring them those feelings. They were all excited and they had used the whole gamut of colors to express themselves. It was an enlightening morning.
However, one little boy said that he knew that joy was black! I was devastated. I was sure that he was depressed and totally without joy. So I invited him to come give me a private audience and tell me about his paper. He said, "Well, Mrs. Lane, you told us that happiness was something that you felt when you went to a birthday party or when you went on vacation or got a new pair of shoes, but that it didn’t last. Then you said that joy was deep inside of you and that nobody could ever take it away from you. I figured if it was deep inside of you where it was dark, it must be black!"
I could have cried! How could I have been so stupid not to have seen that at first? I hugged him and told him that he was a lot smarter than I was. He just grinned.
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