:: Joy Fruit ::

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control..." - Galatians 5:22-23

As I mentioned in this post, we have been talking about the fruits of the Spirit in our house. A few weeks ago, we talked about LOVE and last week we talked about JOY.

It was a fun 'fruit' to talk about. At first I wasn't quite sure how to get her to understand joy, but she pretty much defined it spot on -- for a three year old that is.

When I asked her if she knew what joy was the following conversation took place:

Me: "Analise, do you know what joy is?"
A: "Yeah. Joy is my middle name."
Me: "Well, you are right! Do you know why your middle name is Joy?"
A: "Because you love me and I make you and Daddy happy."
Me: "Yes. That is part of it. So, if someone were to ask you what joy was, what would you tell them?
A: "Um...it's when I'm really happy?"
Me: "Sort of. True joy is more than that..."
A: "Oh, like the HAPPIEST HAPPY!"
Me: "Yes, the happiest happy you can be...deep down in your heart. When you feel like your heart is overflowing with the happiest happy."
A: "Like when I have my friends over to play with me I am the happiest happy. And when my friends invite me over I am the happiest happy. So that means me and my friends have joy."

Throughout the week we talked about ways that we give and receive joy and we wrote them on the back of her 'joy fruit'. The list looks like this:

As the days went on, she kept coming up with ways that she can give joy to others. Some of my favorite ideas that she came up with included volunteering Markus to build houses for the kids in Haiti...

Having her room spic and span before her dad gets home...

Helping me do the laundry...

Having her friends over so we can babysit for their mothers. (She really did say that)...

And her best, heart-melting answer to something that always gives her joy: "Being a Lettner!"

Next up: PEACE