A woman named Frances once knew a young person at church named Debbie. Debbie always seemed effervescent and happy, although Frances knew she had faced struggles in her life. Her long-awaited marriage had quickly ended in divorce. She had struggled to get a grip on her single life. She hadn’t chosen it, but she decided she would live it with utmost enjoyment and satisfaction. <\/p>\n
Debbie was active in Sunday school, in the choir, as a leader of the junior high girls’ group, and in the church renewal movement. Frances enjoyed knowing Debbie. Debbie’s whole face seemed to smile and she always greeted Frances with a hug.<\/p>\n
One day Frances asked Debbie, “How is it that you are always so happy? You have so much energy, and you never seem to get down?”<\/p>\n
With her eyes smiling, Debbie said, “I know the secret!”<\/p>\n
“What secret is that? What are you talking about?” Frances asked. <\/p>\n
Debbie replied, “I’ll tell you all about it, but you have to promise to share the ‘secret’ with others.”<\/p>\n
Frances agreed, “Okay, now what is it?” <\/p>\n
“The secret is this: I have learned there is little I can do in my life that will make me truly happy. I must depend on God to make me happy and meet my needs. When a need arises in my life, I have to trust God to supply according to HIS riches. I have learned that most of the time I don’t need half of what I think I do. HE has never let me down. Since I learned that secret I am happy.”<\/p>\n
Frances’ first thought was, That’s too simple! But upon reflecting over her own life she recalled how she thought a bigger house would make her happy-but it didn’t! She thought a better-paying job would make her happy-but it hadn’t. When did she realize her greatest happiness? Sitting on the floor with her grandchildren, eating pizza and watching a movie, a simple gift from God. <\/p>\n
Debbie knew the secret, Frances learned the secret, and now you know it too! We can’t depend on people to make us happy – only GOD in his wisdom can do that. Trust him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A woman named Frances once knew a young person at church named Debbie. Debbie always seemed effervescent and happy, although Frances knew she had faced struggles in her life. Her long-awaited marriage had quickly ended in divorce. She had struggled to get a grip on her single life. She hadn’t chosen it, but she decided […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[766,1301],"class_list":["post-2074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspire","tag-happiness","tag-secret"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joke-archives.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joke-archives.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joke-archives.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joke-archives.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joke-archives.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.joke-archives.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2074\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joke-archives.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joke-archives.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joke-archives.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}