Good cheer

Norah Summers July 22, 2025 0 0

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Proverbs 17: 22 (NIVUK)

22 A cheerful heart is good medicine,
    but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.

Being cheerful keeps you healthy. Indeed it may, but it isn’t always easy, and indeed we are more likely to think that being healthy keeps you cheerful!

There are many, many people who suffer from some kind of mental ill-health today, and it is not helpful to say to them ‘Cheer up!’ Their malaise may have very deep roots, perhaps in their childhood, or in a work situation, or in family tensions. The Covid pandemic took much joy out of our lives – whether through the illness itself and its attendant anxieties, or through the isolation of lockdown.

And even now there are so many things to worry about: health – your own or that of someone close to you; the uncertainty of work for many; the cost of living; the environment crisis; the decline of the Church . . . how do we stay cheerful?

I have a bookmark which says ‘Enjoy the little things in life because one day you will look back and realise they were the BIG things’.

A friend did something really kind and thoughtful for me the other day, I hadn’t looked for it, but a week later I am still smiling about it, and giving thanks for my lovely friend.

Prayer:

Loving God, in sadness and gladness, you are our joy. Nothing, but nothing, can separate us from your love and care. Help us accept that life will not always be a bed of roses, but that, whatever happens, you are with us.

Read also Deuteronomy 33: 27.