From the book Equilibrium.
David Stokes ended each conversation with a smile. It wasn’t a fake smile. It wasn’t a forced grin. His facial expression came from deep within.
In those months we spent together, I noticed David’s life of equilibrium. His stories included sorrow and miracles—all merging together in a world where grief and celebration sit beside each other. David arrived in Florida during a season I needed to find a balanced life where I could be joyful in hope no matter what had occurred or was occurring during those moments.
He cooked me breakfast as I sat beside the window listening to his business tales while watching deer walk leisurely on a yard they considered their own. David and I ate together slowly, talking and telling stories and asking questions and offering honest ideas. We had only known each other for months; our conversation felt like we had been friends forever.
We met for lunch, enjoying more food and more stories. David told me about when he lost everything—everything other than his true source of joy. He knew life with money and possessions and life without them. He knew how life with God brings joy and hope no matter what else happens.
After David moved back to his home in Mississippi, we continued communicating from a distance. His joy came with him through his words and pictures. When he returned to Orlando, it was like we had not missed a moment. Eventually, he left again for Mississippi. This time he stayed there. I continued thinking about David and his joy, his hope, his balanced life in a world of chaos. I wanted to learn how to find equilibrium the way David had.
When I traveled his direction during my sabbatical, David picked me up at the airport. He drove me places on his motorcycle. We sailed on a lake together.
Many years later, I still see his face and hear his laughter. We still talk. I wish I could taste his breakfast food while the deer peeked in the window, but I am glad his influence is a part of who I am and who I want to become.
From the roads and water and rooms, during the meals and worship services and conversations, when we prayed and asked questions and offered ideas, I learned more than David’s narrative. His bio was interesting. But I learned his heart. David lived with an inner reality of joy and hope.
His circumstances didn’t provide joy. David believed joy’s source is a hope deeper, longer, wider than possessions or titles or accomplishments. He was convinced joy appears when we welcome it as a gift from the Giver of Joy.
I want to be a person living with joy amid the mysteries of life. I desire to be joyful in hope.
In life I feel like its easier to either talk about really good moments or really bad moments. Good times are filled with both good and bad sections but they reach an equilibrium. We have so much in life to be happy about and we need to find the joy in the little things because then we can start to find joy within and spread it to other people.
I feel like especially today we need to reflect on the good experiences we have with someone and focus on how they help us to grow. We often let bad experiences and situations get us down, and we need to use those negative experiences to become stronger in the good.
It can be really easy to get caught up in all the bad things that have happened in our lives. It can easily consume you no matter the severity of it. We need to learn to find the good things in life that are worth living for. Keeping a positive attitude can greatly improve the quality of our lives.
I find myself struggling to find a balance between having unconditional positivity and times of negativity. I feel as though it is not easy to control my moods when there are others around me who question my joy which is why I have been trying to focus more on myself and my emotional strength that God provides. Isaiah 50:7 says “For the Lord GOD will help Me; Therefore I will not be disgraced; Therefore I have set My face like a flint, And I know that I will not be ashamed.” I am usually easily able to do this, but recently I have not been able to. I just pray that I am able to be myself again as God knows I am.
I think oftentimes we find ourselves dwelling on the bad that goes on around us, rather than sitting and marinating in the good- being thankful for what we are fortunate enough to have. Similarly to Pastor Chris, I like to draw near to those who express gratitude, hope, and joy. As someone who has once chosen to mellow in the bad, I now have a different perspective only because of friends like David. The impressions of those that carry characteristics like being optimistic rub off onto others, as it did to me. I, too, find myself thinking back to conversations with those that I’ve learned so much from. Finding joy and hope can truly change your perspective on life in general and allow you to be more grateful for things that God does provide for us.
I’ve had a friend since middle school and we have basically grown up together. Our circumstances growing up were far from joyful. In fact, we watched each other go through some of the hardest times in our lives. We always stood by each other and we were always thankful for the good times. We don’t see each other that often anymore but when we do it is like we never left. We continue to celebrate one another and praise how far both of us have come. We have had a lot of bad times together but we only continue to talk about the good.
We find ourselves dwelling on the bad so much that we forget all the good things that has happened. If we use that same energy that we used for the negativity, things might easier to handle.
some times we have so much going on that we forget to remember that there is always joy. There is always hope even though we sometimes are in despair. The pain and joy always merge together.
Although not in the Bible, one of the most common saying within the Christian community, often attributed to Jesus, says “Tell me who you walk with and I will tell you who you are.” I stand on the belief that it does not matter how much of a scholar, or an academic, or an expert one is at a particular subject, it will always take people to teach us the most truly important lessons regarding said subject. It takes people, listening to them saying what they think, what they did or did not do, what they went through, and what they’ve learned in order to really makes uys grow before a particular area of our lives, which may go way beyond our faith and spiritual beliefs. It takes people, and David was clearly one of those people for Pastor Chris.
Looking at the fun and happy parts of a memory is always helpful to me. Why think about the bad stuff it’s not fun.