SPEAKING JOYFULLY
Heart-shaped Love Gifts
©Joy Dunlap https://joydunlap.comHeart shapes are everywhere – both on shelves and online! Doughnut shops hawk crème-filled hearts. While traditional boxes of chocolates are plentiful, heart-shaped bagels,...
Love Locks – 3 Attitudes to Avoid
©Joy Dunlap https://joydunlap.comLove locks dangle from bridges and sculptures in many cities around the world. Couples pledge their love to each other forever, fasten the padlock and throw away the key. Thousands of locks stand as a symbol of...
Forever Stamp that Lasts
©Joy Dunlap https://joydunlap.comThe cost of “Forever†is rising – or at least the stamps are. “Forever†U.S. postal stamps currently at 50 cents will jump to...
Double Vision Distraction
©Joy Dunlap https://joydunlap.comA severe poke in the eye in the midst of a tight game caused Duke’s standout basketball player Zion Williamson to leave the contest in the first half. To observers, he looked healthy and...
Cave Dwellers Can Find Light
©Joy Dunlap https://joydunlap.comInstead of relaxing on a beach in the Caribbean, I was in a cave. Others were splashing in the ocean, standing tall and upright on paddleboards, or pedaling furiously on water bicycles, and I was descending down...
A Year Full of Gifts to Enjoy
©Joy Dunlap https://joydunlap.comA new year is a bundle of gifts waiting to be unwrapped and enjoyed.As we build up to midnight and the arrival of the New Year, we celebrate (or watch people party on TV). We talk about what the new year may...
What Grateful Looks Like
©Joy Dunlap https://joydunlap.com Is it that we don’t say “Thank You†enough or has “Thanks†become so routine that it sometimes lacks sincerity? As we...
Trees Talk – What Story Do Redwoods Tell?
©Joy Dunlap https://joydunlap.com As a child, the massive redwood trees in California captivated me when my family visited there. That same summer, “It’s a Small World†and the Lighted Parade...
Harvest Well – Leave Margins
©Joy Dunlap https://joydunlap.com In the Old Testament, people were encouraged not to harvest the edges of the field but instead to leave that for the poor and the foreigner or traveler.* Our lives, and the harvest in them, can be of higher...
Seeds for Harvest of Happiness
©Joy Dunlap https://joydunlap.com The memory of picking blackberries with my mom and dad is as fresh and sweet in my mind as that plump, juicy fruit was in my mouth. I grew up in a time when we actually carved faces into pumpkins and stuck a...
