Review: Who Stole My Joy?

I Recommend

I received a copy of Who Stole My Joy? by Sandra Steen and I have to tell you that I found it quite interesting. It's not your usual self-help book. It's written in the form of a dream where good takes the time to learn from evil so that in the end, good wins. Good in the book, is Joy. Evil is everything that robs the joy from our lives, like: broken relationships, jealousy, negative attitudes, selfishness, hatred, lack, loneliness, betrayal, anger, worry, fear, insecurity, rejection, arrogance, and pain.

What I found most interesting, however, are the few intimate remarks made by the author. She said, "I began to take inventory of what was missing in my life. It now appeared to me that life was not producing enough money, time, or fulfillment...I arrived and stayed in a place of dispirited focus: my thoughts took me again and again to what was missing, broken, incomplete, or simply not there. I could literally feel my joy fading, and I felt emotionally drained as I examined the feeling of deprivation that hovered just outside my door."

This lack of joy was a result of focusing on what was missing, which meant that contentment she once experienced was fading fast. But as she began her own personal journey to hold onto her personal joy she discovered that it is our thinking and what we CHOOSE to focus on that keeps us filled with joy and hope and faith and even vision.

For me, that was the best part of the entire book because as I have discovered this very year, so many events in life can rob us of contentment and when contentment is gone, so is our joy. We MUST CHOOSE to rejoice and find joy in everyday circumstances, even when things don't turn out as we had once dreamed or hoped.

If you haven't had a chance to read the book, I encourage you to pick up a copy of Who Stole My Joy?. There's even a CD in the back of the book on "Discovering Joy" with positive affirmations.