Joy Of Loving Quotes & Sayings

When the laundry is for the dozen arms of children or the dozen legs, it's true, I think I'm due some appreciation. So comes a storm of trouble and lightning strikes joy. But when Christ is at the center, when dishes, laundry, work, is my song of thanks to Him, joy rains. Passionately serving Christ alone makes us the loving servant to all. — Ann Voskamp

Grieving the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 4:30). Our anger grieves God's Spirit, not only producing bitter fruit but quenching the fruit of the Spirit in our lives. Rather than operating with love, joy, and peace toward others, a bitter person becomes hateful, negative, and restless, closing off his heart toward others. Bitter people become very unlike themselves. The most loving and joyful people in the world can become hateful, irrational pessimists if they let bitterness take root and don't forgive. Believe it or not, bitterness even hurts us physically. "A joyful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit dries up the bones" (Proverbs 17:22). The tension of trying to contain it can harden our facial features and make us lose the radiance of our countenance, even causing a chemical imbalance in our bodies and lowering our resistance to disease. — Stephen Kendrick

It's the same struggle for each of us, and the same path out: the utterly simple, infinitely wise ultimately defiant act of loving one thing and then another, loving our way back to life ... Maybe being perfectly happy is not really the point. Maybe that is only some modern American dream of the point, while the truer measure of humanity is the distance we must travel in our lives, time and again, "twixt two extremes of passion
joy and grief," as Shakespeare put it. However much I've lost, what remains to me is that I can still speak to name the things I love. And I can look for safety in giving myself away to the world's least losable things. — Barbara Kingsolver

We need to repent of our sin for not loving our children. Spend some time in repentance and read God's Word and reading books about motherhood. You may be depleted and need fresh vision and perspective in regards to your role as a mom. Find a way to be alone for a few hours and study God's Word as your role as a mother. If you are not enjoying your children if you're lacking joy as a mother may I appeal to you to take whatever measures necessary to change. Repent and find a mature woman who enjoys her role as a mother to encourage you and hold you accountable to this period of your life. — Carolyn Mahaney

Walking up to the screened porch, however, I felt as strange and disconnected as I had ever been in my entire life. It was as if I were two people: a man who was a capable detective, a loving husband, and a devoted father who was heading toward a quiet little house in the South, and an unsure and fearful boy of eight trudging toward a home that might be filled with music, love, and joy or, just as easily, screaming, turmoil, and madness. — James Patterson

Our joy in life is inexorably determined by the degree to which we love. — Seth Adam Smith

Love is doing what will enthrall the beloved with the greatest and longest joy. What will enthrall the beloved this way is the glory of God. Love means doing all we can, at whatever cost to ourselves, to help people be enthralled with the glory of God. When they are, they are satisfied and God is glorified. Therefore loving people and glorifying God are one. — John Piper

The damage done through abuse is awful and heinous, but minor compared to the dynamics that distort the victim's relationship with God and rob her of the joy of loving and being loved by others. — Dan B. Allender

Joy. The joy of my joy. There through everything. A shocking sense of vitality and beauty present in both happiness and in the midst of pain. The only thing I can think to compare this experience to is the experience of an excellent story - reading a great novel, say, or watching a great movie. The scene before you might be a happy one or a sad one. You might feel uplifted or you might feel heartbroken or you might feel afraid. But whatever you feel, you're still loving the story. Through prayer, I came to experience both pleasure and sorrow in something like that way. In God, the life of the flesh became the story of the spirit. I loved that story, no matter what. During — Andrew Klavan

I have been a joy to live with all spring: Upbeat, warm and tender, uncomplicated, and loving. I am no trouble at all. You could press me into dough and make sugar cookies out of me, I've been so sweet. — Adriana Trigiani

The leap of faith always means loving without expecting to be loved in return, giving without wanting to receive, inviting without hoping to be invited, holding without asking to be held. And every time I make a little leap, I catch a glimpse of the One who runs out to me and invites me into his joy, the joy in which I can find not only myself, but also my brothers and sisters. Thus the disciplines of trust and gratitude reveal the God who searches for me, burning with desire to take away all my resentments and complaints and to let me sit at his side at the heavenly banquet. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

Practicing loving kindness meditation is like digging deep into the ground until we reach the purest water. We look deeply into ourselves until insight arises and our love flows to the surface. Joy and happiness radiate from our eyes, and everyone around us benefits from our smile and our presence. If we take good care of ourselves, we help everyone. We stop being a source of suffering to the world, and we become a reservoir of joy and freshness. Here and there are people who know how to take good care of themselves, who live joyfully and happily. They are our strongest support. Whatever they do, they do for everyone. — Thich Nhat Hanh

Wholehearted acceptance is a basic element of love, starting with love for ourselves, and a gateway to joy. Through the practices of loving kindness and self-compassion, we can learn to love our flawed and imperfect selves. And in those moments of vulnerability, we open our hearts to connect with each other, as well. We are not perfect, but we are enough. — Sharon Salzberg

Being Christian is not just obeying orders but means being in Christ, thinking like him, acting like him, loving like him; it means letting him take possession of our life and change it, transform it, and free it from the darkness of evil and sin ... Let us show the joy of being children of God, the freedom that living in Christ gives us which is true freedom, the freedom that saves us from the slavery of evil, of sin and of death! — Pope Francis

We find these joys to be self evident: That all children are created whole, endowed with innate intelligence, with dignity and wonder, worthy of respect. The embodiment of life, liberty and happiness, children are original blessings, here to learn their own song. Every girl and boy is entitled to love, to dream and belong to a loving "village." And to pursue a life of purpose.
We affirm our duty to nourish and nurture the young, to honour their caring ideals as the heart of being human. To recognize the early years as the foundation of life, and to cherish the contribution of young children to human evolution.
We commit ourselves to peaceful ways and vow to keep from harm or neglect these, our most vulnerable citizens. As guardians of their prosperity we honour the bountiful Earth whose diversity sustains us. Thus we pledge our love for generations to come. — Raffi Cavoukian

I shall spend every moment loving. One who loves does not notice her trials; or perhaps more accurately, she is able to love them. I shall do everything for Heaven, my true home. There I shall find my Mother in all the splendor of her glory. I shall delight with her in the joy of Jesus himself in perfect safety. — Bernadette Soubirous

Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who we think we're supposed to be and embracing who we are. Choosing authenticity means cultivating the courage to be imperfect, to set boundaries, and to allow ourselves to be vulnerable; exercising the compassion that comes from knowing that we are all made of strength and struggle; and nurturing the connection and sense of belonging that can only happen when we believe that we are enough. Authenticity demands Wholehearted living and loving - even when it's hard, even when we're wrestling with the shame and fear of not being good enough, and especially when the joy is so intense that we're afraid to let ourselves feel it. Mindfully practicing authenticity during our most soul-searching struggles is how we invite grace, joy, and gratitude into our lives. — Brene Brown

Jesus, thou joy of loving hearts, Thou fount of life, thou Light of men, From the best bliss that earth imparts We turn unfilled to Thee again. We taste Thee, O Thou living Bread, And long to feast upon Thee still: We drink of Thee, the Fountainhead, And thirst our souls from Thee to fill. O Jesus, ever with us stay, Make all our moments calm and bright; Chase the dark night of sin away, Shed o'er the world Thy holy light. — Bernard Of Clairvaux

The nature of living and loving is the act of reciprocity. As women, we are told that to be the guest is to receive. We are told that to be the host is to give. But what if it is the reverse? What if it is the guest who gives to the host and it is the host who receives from the guest each time she sets her table to welcome and feed those she loves? To be the guest and the host simultaneously is to imagine a mutual exchange of gifts predicated on respect and joy. If we could adopt this truth, perhaps we as women would be less likely to become martyrs. — Terry Tempest Williams

The will's operation is quite distinct from the will's feeling: By its operation, which is love, the will is united with God and terminates in him, and not by the feeling and gratification of its appetite that remains in the soul and goes no further. The feelings only serve as stimulants to love, if the will desires to pass beyond them; and they serve for no more. Thus the delightful feelings do not of themselves lead the soul to God, but rather cause it to become attached to delightful feelings. But the operation of the will, which is the love of God, concentrates the affection, joy, plea sure, satisfaction, and love of the soul only on God, leaving aside all things and loving him above them all. — San Juan De La Cruz

The angels are thoughts of love sent from God. Since God is continuously expressing loving thoughts, there are an infinite number of angels. They are very real messengers, sent by God, to help us feel peace and joy. — Doreen Virtue

You must know that I do not love and that I love you,
because everything alive has its two sides;
a word is one wing of silence,
fire has its cold half.
I love you in order to begin to love you,
to start infinity again
and never to stop loving you:
that's why I do not love you yet.
I love you, and I do not love you, as if I held
keys in my hand: to a future of joy-
a wretched, muddled fate-
My love has two lives, in order to love you.
-Sonnet XLIV — Pablo Neruda

The Church is the only entity equipped to penetrate to the spiritual roots of our moral illnesses. We are to call out the fruit of the Holy Spirit in the economy, enlisting the weapons of love, joy, patience, goodness, kindness and self-control, which are the foundation of true freedom. Many Christian teachers rightly point out that our society's willingness to take on the slavery of debt in exchange for stuff is an expression of the deep emptiness that people are seeking to fill within themselves. One of the most powerful aspects of the Gospel is that this emptiness can only be filled by the loving reconnection with the Father that Jesus offers. For this reason, it is less critical that we condemn the world's decadence than that we make an appeal to human desire and how it is genuinely fulfilled. — Stephen K. De Silva

The real purpose of meditation is this: to teach a man how to work himself free of created things and temporal concerns, in which he finds only confusion and sorrow, and enter into a conscious and loving contact with God in which he is disposed to receive from God the help he knows he needs so badly, and to pay to God the praise and honor and thanksgiving and love which it has now become his joy to give. — Thomas Merton

All over now. He is either in joy or nothingness.
(So why grieve?
The worst of it, for him, is over.)
Because I loved him so and am in the habit of loving him and that love must take the form of fussing and worry and doing. — George Saunders

Remember, you're the most loving child of this universe. Universe has to wait billions of years to get impregnated with you. You are the joy and creator of your universe. — Debasish Mridha

We Americans claim to be a peace-loving people. We hate bloodshed; we are opposed to violence. Yet we go into spasms of joy over the possibility of projecting dynamite bombs from flying machines upon helpless citizens. We are ready to hang, electrocute, or lynch anyone, who, from economic necessity, will risk his own life in the attempt upon that of some industrial magnate. Yet our hearts swell with pride at the thought that America is becoming the most powerful nation on earth, and that she will eventually plant her iron foot on the necks of all other nations.
Such is the logic of patriotism. — Emma Goldman

Writing fiction is not a profession that leaves one well-disposed toward reading fiction. One starts out loving books and stories, and then one becomes jaded and increasingly hard to please. I read less and less fiction these days, finding the buzz and the joy I used to get from fiction in ever stranger works of non-fiction, or poetry. — Neil Gaiman

So beautiful but so bountiful.
So delicate but so fresh.
So magical but so simple.
So much to say but yet so silent.
So loving and so pleasant.
Oh, flowers of charming love,
You are life's joy and present. — Debasish Mridha

Solidarity, compassion, caring, communion and loving. Such values and inner powers can lay the foundation of a new paradigm of civilization, the civilization of the humanity reunited in the Common House, on the Planet Earth our mission is to celebrate the greatness of Creation and connect it again to the Core where it came from and to where it will go, with care, lightness, joy, reverence and love. — Leonardo Boff

The essence of love is that what is ours should belong to someone else. Feeling the joy of someone else as joy within ourselves-that is loving. — Emanuel Swedenborg

I saw my name: THOMAS, Petria. Saw my time, 57.72. Saw the number one next to them. I'd done it. Me! Petria Thomas, Olympic champion. The feeling inside was one of pure, utter joy. Excitement, disbelief, relief, hapiness, amazement, the whole works. Id worked so hard. I'd gone through so much, privately, publicly. I'd lost faith in myself and found it again. I'd sometimes stopped believing that I could do it and that I had a purpose in life. I'd come through the darkness, and this, this moment, was the sweetest, most amazing light there could possibly be. I was alive and loving it! — Petria Thomas

Henri Nouwen wrote of the spiritual work of gratitude: To be grateful for the good things that happen in our lives is easy, but to be grateful for all of our lives - the good as well as the bad, the moments of joy as well as the moments of sorrow, the successes as well as the failures, the rewards as well as the rejections - that requires hard spiritual work. Still, we are only grateful people when we can say thank you to all that has brought us to the present moment. As long as we keep dividing our lives between events and people we would like to remember and those we would rather forget, we cannot claim the fullness of our beings as a gift of God to be grateful for. Let's not be afraid to look at everything that has brought us to where we are now and trust that we will soon see in it the guiding hand of a loving God.2 — Brennan Manning

From that evening, Swann understood that the feeling which Odette had once had for him would never revive, that his hopes of happiness would not be realised now. And the days on which, by a lucky chance, she had once more shewn herself kind and loving to him, or if she had paid him any attention, he recorded those apparent and misleading signs of a slight movement on her part towards him with the same tender and sceptical solicitude, the desperate joy that people reveal who, when they are nursing a friend in the last days of an incurable malady, relate, as significant facts of infinite value: "Yesterday he went through his accounts himself, and actually corrected a mistake that we had made in adding them up; he ate an egg to-day and seemed quite to enjoy it, if he digests it properly we shall try him with a cutlet to-morrow,"
although they themselves know that these things are meaningless on the eve of an inevitable death. — Marcel Proust

There is only one sin - lack of love. Be brave, be capable of loving, even if love seems a terrible and treacherous thing. Find joy in love. Find joy in victory. Follow the dictates of your heart. — Paulo Coelho

When your fulfillment and sense of self are no longer dependent on the future outcome, joy flows into whatever you do. You do what you do because the action itself is fulfilling. Whatever you do or create in that state is of high quality. This is because it is not a means to an end, and so a loving care flows into your doing. — Eckhart Tolle

There are two types of empathy: the positive empathy and the negative empathy. When we are fully carried away by the unaware activities of the mirror neurons, we are under the trap of negative empathy. The negative empathy generates attachments. Out of these attachments suffering follows. Negative empathy is a kind of reaction to a situation, whereas positive empathy is internal response of peace love and tranquility ... In positive empathy, your deep tranquility, joy and peace activates the mirror neurons of the others, whereas in negative empathy your mirror neurons are activated by the disturbance of others. — Amit Ray

An eye is meant to see things.
The soul is here for its own joy.
A head has one use: For loving a true love.
Feet: To chase after.
Love is for vanishing into the sky. The mind,
for learning what men have done and tried to do.
Mysteries are not to be solved: The eye goes blind
when it only wants to see why.
A lover is always accused of something.
But when he finds his love, whatever was lost
in the looking comes back completely changed. — Rumi

Your spirituality is simply the positive, loving side of yourself, the energy of joy and togetherness. It's the feeling you have when your dog bounds up wagging its tail, or the biggest laugh you have with your best friend. Or that feeling in a concert when sixty thousand people sing along in unison to a song you love, or the moment when you are looking into the eyes of someone you love, or when you feel at your most confident and happy, as if you can do anything. It is all the most positive aspects of our existence. In short, it is love. — Matthew Todd

Now he understood that a man never knows for whom he suffers and hopes. He suffers and hopes and toils for people he will never know, and who, in turn, will suffer and hope and toil for others who will not be happy either, for man always seeks a happiness far beyond that which is meted out to him. But man's greatness consists in the very fact of wanting to be better than he is. In laying duties upon himself. In the Kingdom of Heaven there is no grandeur to be won, inasmuch as there all is an established hierarchy, the unknown is revealed, existence is infinite, there is no possibility of sacrifice, all is rest and joy. For this reason, bowed down by suffering and duties, beautiful in the midst of his misery, capable of loving in the face of afflictions and trials, man finds his greatness, his fullest measure, only in the Kingdom of this World. — Alejo Carpentier

Being in love isn't the only way of loving. I realized with all my being that if you loved somebody- it didn't matter who it was- and dedicated yourself to bringing joy to your loved one, you, too, would be redeemed. — Sayo Masuda

Along the way, my Heavenly Father has taught me that the fruit of the Spirit - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness and self-control - is really just a byproduct of spending time with the Lord. It results from dwelling in His Word and listening for His voice. As much as we might try, we can't go out and manufacture peace. We can't conjure joy or whip up faithfulness in the microwave. Those things come to us only as we receive God's love, focus on bringing Him glory, stick close to Him, and live out the greatest commandment: loving God with everything we have and loving others in His name. — Jeremy Camp

LOVING KINDNESS The first element of true love is loving kindness. The essence of loving kindness is being able to offer happiness. You can be the sunshine for another person. You can't offer happiness until you have it for yourself. So build a home inside by accepting yourself and learning to love and heal yourself. Learn how to practice mindfulness in such a way that you can create moments of happiness and joy for your own nourishment. Then you have something to offer the other person. — Thich Nhat Hanh

The symphony of motherhood, it's about loving with absolute abandon, loving without regard for self, loving with a near totality of being. It's about a passion that could outburn the sun with its brightness. About a depthless hope and a fierce, rending joy. — Cody McFadyen

Loving and parenting a dog as a single parent can create all sorts of new and unusual problems, but also new sources of joy. — Jenna Morasca

Every time I hear anyone speak of the Sacred Heart of Jesus or of the Blessed Sacrament I feel an indescribable joy. It is as if a wave of precious memories, sweet affections and joyful hopes swept over my poor person, making me tremble with happiness and filling my soul with tenderness. These are loving appeals from Jesus who wants me wholeheartedly there, at the source of all goodness, his Sacred Heart, throbbing mysteriously behind the Eucharistic veils ... I love to repeat today 'Sweet Heart of my Jesus, make me love You more and more.' — Pope John XXIII

there can be occasions when we suddenly and involuntarily find ourselves loving r=the natural world with a startling intensity, in a burst of emotion which we may not fully understand, and the only word that seems to me to be appropriate for this feeling is joy — Michael McCarthy

Then a ploughman said , speak to us of work : in keeping yourself with labour you are in truth loving life ,
And to love life throught labour is to be intimate with inmost secrets .
And what is it to work with love ?
it is to weave the colth with threads from your heart , even as if your beloved were to wear that colth .
It is to build a house with affection , even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house .
It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy , even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit .
It is to change all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit .
He who works in marble , and finds the shape of his own soul in the stone , is nobler than he who ploughs the soil. — Kahlil Gibran

The Claudias also need laughter and play, they need people who will celebrate life with them and manifest their joy of being with them. It was this joy and the gentle presence of Nadine and the others in Suyapa that gradually weakened Claudia's great walls of defence. Little by little, she began to trust that she was not bad, but capable of loving and being loved. — Jean Vanier

Instead of loving a God, we love each other. Instead of the religion of the sky-the religion of this world-the religion of the family-the love of husband for wife, of wife for husband-the love of all for children. So that now the real religion is: Let us live for each other; let us live for this world without regard for the past and without fear for the future. Let us use our faculties and our powers for the benefit of ourselves and others, knowing that if there be another world, the same philosophy that gives us joy here will make us happy there. — Robert Green Ingersoll

God wants to bring joy not pain, peace not war, healing not suffering. Therefore, instead of declaring anything and everything to be the will of God, we must be willing to ask ourselves where in the midst of our pains and sufferings we can discern the loving presence of God. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

What most people perceive as energy is really strength of spirit. It comes from the joy of knowing God, loving Him, and being loved by Him. — Kathie Lee Gifford

Being joy is about loving all of what is here. — Stephanie Filardi

The exercise of benevolence is joy to loving hearts: the more pain it costs, the more joy it is. Kind actions make us happy, and in such joy we find communion with the great heart of Jesus. — Charles Spurgeon

Suffering has its place in the scheme of things. It serves a purpose even though the sufferer may be entirely free from the taint of sin ... Among the gentlest and sweetest souls are sometimes found those who suffer much. A person that accepts his lot, does his best, loving both God and man, is a success and will experience a joy in living. — Joseph F. Merrill

You did not invent these family habits. Your family is like mine, for thousands and thousands of years our families have embraced a dysfunctional lifestyle, passing these habits as gospel on to subsequent generations. This was not done out of malice, spite, or hate, but what they knew best. As ineffective as these habits are, you never stopped to consider another way of loving. — David W. Earle

Affirm my life every morning and let myself have a good day, free myself each night to dream the necessary dreams, find pleasure in serving those I love, give up guilt at refusing to when they demand my self-annihilation, find joy in teaching, joy in talking to loving readers ... , give my self time every day to walk or go to a museum, be generous because it reminds me how much abundance I have been given, be loving because it reminds me not to feel jealous of those who only seem to have more, seize my life, release my anger, bless the known and the unknown world ...
If, every day, I dare to remember that I am here on loan, that this house, this hillside, these minutes are all leased to me, not given, I will never despair. Despair is for those who expect to live for ever.
I no longer do. — Erica Jong

Sometimes you can just not spend that much money or do a minor change with color on a certain room, and it just can open up and brings people a lot of joy. They can go from hating a room or hating a house to loving it. — Katherine LaNasa

My sister will die over and over again for the rest of my life. Grief is forever. It doesn't go away; it becomes a part of you, step for step, breath for breath. I will never stop grieving Bailey because I will never stop loving her. That's just how it is. Grief and love are conjoined, you don't get one without the other. All I can do is love her, and love the world, emulate her by living with daring and spirit and joy. — Jandy Nelson

In the mind, we doubt and suspect, and we get a kind of pleasure, a kind of joy from that. But in the heart, we try to encompass the full world, and by loving the world, we get joy. — Sri Chinmoy

Love for the joy of loving, and not for the offerings of someone else's heart. — Marlene Dietrich

Intimate, loving, and enduring relationships with our family and close friends will be among the sources of the deepest joy in our lives. — Clayton M Christensen

Finding Will, loving Will, had been a revelation. Like finding the other half of herself. Having his grounded wisdom to draw on when she needed it, knowing that no matter what, she had him to come home to, that his laughter was part of her world and that the passion and courage and joy he ignited in her were here to stay, had transformed her perception of herself. — Sarah Mayberry

Humility makes us more friendly
Happiness makes us more lively.
Love makes us more caring
Dream makes us more daring.
Trust makes us more forgiving
Kindness makes us more loving.
Hope gives us the joy of dreaming
Peace gives us the joy of living. — Debasish Mridha

Of the good things given between man and man, I say that a neighbor, true and loving in heart, to neighbor is a joy beyond all things else. — Pindar

But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise on your lips. — Kahlil Gibran

When I ask, "What are you afraid of?" I'm asking, "What is it that immobilizes you? What is stealing your joy and destroying your hope? What is robbing you of sleep, night after night? What keeps you from living by faith and being a risk taker? What keeps you from giving your life wholly to a loving God who wants nothing but the best for you? — David Jeremiah

Yes, I've made a great deal of dough from my fiction, but I never set a single word down on paper with the thought of being paid for it ... I have written because it fulfilled me ... I did it for the buzz. I did it for the pure joy of the thing. And if you can do it for joy, you can do it forever. — Stephen King

Jesus was no cold Superman - he was more human than any of us. Entirely pure, unweakened by evil, he was loving and open to the core. His ardor, truth, sensitivity, power, capacity for joy and pain were unlimited, and everything that happened to him happened in the immeasurableness of his divinity. — Romano Guardini

What does a woman do as she waits for her man? She may wash her hair, put on makeup, choose the kind of outfit any woman would be eager to try on, spray on perfume, and look at herself one last time in the mirror. If she does these things, it's when she and the man she's waiting for are in love. It's different when a woman waits for a man she still loves but who has broken up with her, because the pure joy of it is missing. Loving someone is like carving words into the back of your hand. Even if the others can't see the words, they, like glowing letters, stand out in the eyes of the person who's left you. Right now, that's enough for me. — Kyung-ran Jo

I do not fear being hurt, nor am I ever sorry should such pain take hold of me. My real fear would be to never know the the joy of loving someone so deeply as to be that vulnerable ... — Tonny K. Brown

The implications of the Triunity of God for prayer are many. It means, to begin with, that God has always had within himself a perfect friendship. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are adoring one another, giving glorifying love to one another, and delighting in one another. We know of no joy higher than being loved and loving in return, but a triune God would know that love and joy in unimaginable, infinite dimensions. God is, therefore, infinitely, profoundly happy, filled with perfect joy - not some abstract tranquility but the fierce happiness of dynamic loving relationships. Knowing this God is not to get beyond emotions or thoughts but to be filled with glorious love and joy. — Timothy Keller

The most rapturous delights you have ever had - in the beauty of a landscape, or in the pleasure of food, or in the fulfillment of a loving embrace - are like dewdrops compared to the bottomless ocean of joy that it will be to see God face-to-face (1 John 3:1-3). That is what we are in for, nothing less. And according to the Bible, that glorious beauty, and our enjoyment of it, has been immeasurably enhanced by Christ's redemption of us from evil and death. — Timothy Keller

Whenever we feel the absence of peace - whenever our unmet longing for joy expresses itself as anxiety, or depression, or fear, or anger, or enslavement to any number of defeating sin patterns or addictions - the emptiness we're feeling and trying to fill is for what our relationship with God, by His loving choice, was always meant to be. Our angst comes from the underlying implications of Ecclesiastes 3:11, where the Scripture says God has put eternity into man's heart. — Matt Chandler

And what is the joy of Christ? The joy and delight which springs forever in His great heart, from feeling that He is forever doing good; from loving all, and living for all; from knowing that if not all, yet millions on millions are grateful to Him, and will be forever. — Charles Kingsley

The loving and much loved wife is satisfied with the love of her husband; his smile is her joy, she cares little for any other. So, if you have come to Christ, thy Maker is thine husband - His free love to you is all you need, and all you can care for - there is no cloud between you and God - there is no veil between you and the Father; you have access to Him who is the fountain of happiness - what have you to do any more with idols? Oh! If your heart swims in the rays of God's love, like a little mote swimming in the sunbeam, you will have no room in your heart for idols. — Robert E. Murray

Here's the truth: It is not Grown to expect a relationship to provide what you are not committed to providing for yourself. The capacity for others to love you can never exceed the love you demonstrate for yourself. Furthermore, you don't attract what you want in relationships, but what you are. So if you want financial security in a relationship, you need to commit to providing that for yourself. If tender, loving treatment is what you desire, then you should be giving that to yourself as a single person. If you seek forgiveness, compassion and emotional safety in a relationship, you must be committed to requiring that of yourself in single life. If you want a relationship rich with fun, joy and adventure, then that is exactly the life you should be pursuing as a single person. On the other hand, if you are desperate and unhappy as a single person, you are neither qualified nor prepared for a healthy relationship and you will attract and choose anything but. — Zara D. Green

There is the kiss of welcome and of parting, the long, lingering, loving, present one; the stolen, or the mutual one; the kiss of love, of joy, and of sorrow; the seal of promise and receipt of fulfillment. — Thomas Chandler Haliburton

We can draw no deadlines for God. He hastens or He delays as he sees fit. And his timing is all-loving toward his children. On, that we might learn to be patient in the hour of darkness. I don't mean that we make peace with darkness. We fight for joy. But we fight as those who are saved by grace and held by Christ. We say ... that our night will soon- in God's good timing- turn to day. — John Piper

These women lived their lives happily. They had been taught, probably by loving parents, not to exceed the boundaries of their happiness regardless of what they were doing. But therefore they could never know real joy. Which is better? Who can say? Everyone lives the way she knows best. What I mean by 'their happiness' is living a life untouched as much as possible by the knowledge that we are really, all of us, alone. That's not a bad thing. Dressed in their aprons, their smiling faces like flowers, leaning to cook, absorbed in their little troubles and perplexities, they fall in love and marry. I think that's great. I wouldn't mind that kind of life. Me, when I'm utterly exhausted by it all, my skin breaks out, on those lonely evenings when I call my friends again and again and nobody's home, then I despise my own life - my birth, my upbringing, everything. I feel only regret for the whole thing. — Banana Yoshimoto

Above all else, be true to your heart. When you marry, whether it be a marquis or an estate manager (or both!), it will be for life. You must go where your heart leads and never forget that love is the most precious gift of all. Money and social status are poor substitutes for a warm, tender embrace, and there is little in life more fulfilling than the joy of loving and knowledge that you are loved in return. — Julia Quinn

Thank you for coming into my life and giving me joy, thank you for loving me and receiving my love in return. Thank you for the memories I will cherish forever. But most of all, thank you for showing me that there will come a time when I can eventually let you go. — Nicholas Sparks

The deep happiness that marriage can bring, then, lies on the far side of sacrificial service in the power of the Spirit. That is, you only discover your own happiness after each of you has put the happiness of your spouse ahead of your own, in a sustained way, in response to what Jesus has done for you. Some will ask, "If I put the happiness of my spouse ahead of my own needs - then what do I get out of it?" The answer is - happiness. That is what you get, but a happiness through serving others instead of using them, a happiness that won't be bad for you. It is the joy that comes from giving joy, from loving another person in a costly way. — Timothy Keller

When I think of happiness or joy in this life, I begin with some experiences that are simple and basic. I see the expression on the face of a one-year-old taking those first steps. I think of a child loving a puppy or a kitten. If the more mature have not dulled their physical or spiritual sensitivities by excess or disuse, they can also experience joy in what is simple and basic. — Dallin H. Oaks

The extension of power offered by a pony, the ease and speed of movement, the tapping of unsuspected courage, the satisfaction of collaboration with another creature and of controlling it in order to improve the collaboration, the joy of fussing over it - of loving it - these, from the age of about eight to sixteen were the most completely realised delights of my life. — Diana Athill

The greatest joy of life is not on achieving but in serving, loving, and giving. — Debasish Mridha

Keep the joy of loving God in your heart and share this joy with all you meet especially your family. Be holy let us pray. — Mother Teresa

Your love is my treasure And my heart is buried there. Your touch is my pleasure Soothing my soul with every care. Subject of my poetry, Love of my youth, Melody to my songs Of joy absolute, Would you believe me? I speak the truth When in poem and song I say to you, That when violets turn red And roses bloom blue That's the day I'll stop loving you. — Warren L.G De Mills

I once heard a woman who'd lost her dog say that she felt as though a color were suddenly missing from her world: the dog had introduced to her field of vision some previously unavailable hue, and without the dog, that color was gone. That seemed to capture the experience of loving a dog with eminent simplicity. I'd amend it only slightly and say that if we are open to what they have to give us, dogs can introduce us to several colors, with names like wildness and nurturance and trust and joy. — Caroline Knapp

And in front of it all are the pearly gates: the proverbial entrance to Heaven that she, in earthly life, thought might not exist. But they are real, not myth or fantasy.
As she passes through them, several people greet her. In foreign tongues even, but she understands. Language no longer matter. There are no barriers between herself and others, just love.
The gorgeous views seem to go on forever. Ornate structures, mansions, banquet halls, and natural beauty, orchards, gardens. People congregate around huge marble fountains. In the distance are snow-capped mountains of the purist white. She can hear the sounds of rushing rivers and the surf of the ocean at once.
Everyone around her is happy, loving, thankful. A choir sings songs of joy and peace while others play musical instruments of every kind in perfect harmony. Children laugh and play in the streets as well as in the clouds above her head. — Victoria Kahler

Do not cry to me. I can only cry with you. I will not die for you. I am still too young in the meaning of love. Talk to the Fool, to the one who left a throne to enter an anthill. He will enter your shadow. It cannot taint HIm. He has done it before. His holiness is not fragile. It burns like a father to the sun. Touch His skin, put your hand in His side. He has kept His scars when He did not have to. Give Him your pain and watch it overwhelmed, burned away in the joy He takes in loving. In stooping. — N.D. Wilson

Your essays spoke of beauty, of love, of light and darkness, of joy and sorrow, and of the goodness of life. They were wonderful compositions. I have seldom read any that have touched me more.
To thank you and your teacher Mrs. Ellis, I am sending you what I think is one of the most beautiful and miraculous things in the world - an egg. I have a goose named Felicity and she lays about forty eggs every spring. It takes her almost three months to accomplish this. Each egg is a perfect thing. I am mailing you one of Felicity's eggs. The insides have been removed - blown out - so the egg should last forever. I hope you will enjoy seeing this great egg and loving it. Thank you for sending me your essays about being somebody. I was pleased that so many of you felt the beauty and goodness of the world. If we feel that when we are young, then there is great hope for us when we grow older. — E.B. White

One bulb at a time. There was no other way to do it. No shortcuts
simply loving the slow process of planting. Loving the work as it unfolded. Loving an achievement that grew slowly and bloomed for only three weeks each year. — Jaroldeen Asplund Edwards

Dogs, lives are short, too short, but you know that going in. You know the pain is coming, you're going to lose a dog, and there's going to be great anguish, so you live fully in the moment with her, never fail to share her joy or delight in her innocence, because you can't support the illusion that a dog can be your lifelong companion. There's such beauty in the hard honesty of that, in accepting and giving love while always aware that it comes with an unbearable price. Maybe loving dogs is a way we do penance for all the other illusions we allow ourselves and the mistakes we make because of those illusions. — Dean Koontz

You are the loving child of this universe, she is always eager to help you, your joy is her happiness. — Debasish Mridha

Love was more than just a fleeting desire, or a brief glimpse into a fairy tale, or a flash of playful flirtation in her beautiful hazel eyes. It was more than infatuation with a person's best qualities, or reluctant acceptance of their less appealing traits. Real love meant loving the whole person, in every form, in every state, in every way. It was what transformed the ordinary monotony of everyday life into extraordinary moments of warmth and compassion and joy. — Jacqueline E. Smith

Some live for their own joy and pleasure.
Some live to ease the burdens of others.
Then there are those who seem to exist for pain's sake only, that in the end the wrathful fire sent to consume their oppressors will be justified."

~ In loving memory of Miss Annabelle Fancher — Richelle E. Goodrich

To be motherly is a totally different phenomenon. It is something absolutely human; it transcends animality. It has nothing to do with biology. It is love, pure love, unconditional love. When a mother loves unconditionally - and only a mother can love unconditionally - the child learns the joy of unconditional love. The child becomes capable of loving unconditionally. And to be able to love unconditionally is to be religious. And it is the easiest thing for a woman to do. It is easy for her because naturally she is ready for it. — Rajneesh

Loving can cost a lot but not loving always costs more, and those who fear to love often find that want of love is an emptiness that robs the joy from life. — Merle Shain

Joy is often an outgrowth not simply of following our vocation in life, but of helping those in need and of loving one another. So joy is not a selfish thing to seek, but a selfless thing to find. — James Martin