I seldom saw Sara smile. She went about her job day-in and day-out without skipping a beat. Walking toward her, I never knew what she was thinking. She had perfected a cool, imperturbable manner that revealed nothing about her true feelings and made her hard to fathom. I decided that I was going to make it my daily goal to make her laugh out loud at work. You need to understand that up to this point I had never heard her laugh or even express the slightest amusement. It took many days before I was able to get my first out-loud laugh out of Sara. When she finally did, it made me laugh with joy and my laughter encouraged her to laugh louder. From that point on, although I wasn't able to get a response out of her every day, it began to happen more and more regularly.
To get Sara to laugh, I needed to get to know her and to be interested in what she liked and didn’t like. I found out that Sara had a crush on one of the men at our workplace, so I encouraged her to pursue her desires. As a result, Sara started to smile more and more. People began to interact with her because she wasn’t always looking down and frowning. Throughout this time, Sara herself initiated some changes. Unbeknownst to anyone, she joined Jenny Craig and slowly began to lose a bunch of weight. She had a make-over and started to wear make-up, got her hair cut into a new, attractive style, and with her new slimmer shape, she needed a new wardrobe. It would be great to be able to tell you that this all had a fairy-tale ending and that Sara and the focus of her crush ended up together, but such is not the case. The young man turned out to be very shallow and could only see himself with a tall, long legged blond. However, taking into consideration what he himself had to offer, perhaps there is some justice in the fact that this didn't happen for him and still hasn’t happened.
Now, not for a moment is the point of this story that because I encouraged her to laugh everyday her life changed. Sara needed to discover what was important to her, what she wanted for herself, and then to start moving toward whatever that was. It happened that God allowed me to be there at the time she was ready to make some changes and I was able to encourage her to understand that she has value, just because she is who she is. Sara needed to grab hold of that fact. Because she was willing to look at her life and make some changes, she found her joy inside.
You may need to think about this quote from Benjamin Franklin for a second, but the point is a good one: “It is hard for an empty bag to stand upright.” Is your bag empty because you haven’t taken the time to realize your joy?
