Beloveds, will you choose happiness today and in so doing extend your happiness? Your happiness goes so far as to reach Me. It overjoys Me, your happiness. It makes a wide grin on My face, as it were.

I would you to be happy. I would you to take joy in life in general and yours in particular.

If it is hard for you sometimes to be happy, then take joy the way you would take a walk, the way you might reach for a package on a high shelf, the way you might bend down to pick a flower. Or the way you might shake hands, look up at the sky, turn around to see what's right behind you; the way you might pick out jewelry, for the shine of it, for the showing of it, for the turning of it over in your hands.

Joy is available. Bring it closer to you. Here I hand you some right now. Take it and put it in your heart the way you would a handkerchief in your pocket. Joy is yours to keep tucked in your heart. This handkerchief of joy is like a magician's. He keeps pulling a hanging handkerchief out of his pocket and, to his feigned surprise, more and more comes out, unending colorful handkerchiefs, one tied to the other, effulgent one after the effulgent other. So give your joy away. It's unlimited.

Keep joy to you and give it away. The more joyful you are, the more you give away. The more joy there is, the more joy there is. Give joy in every direction. Accept it from everywhere.

Your admittance ticket to life is joy. I stamped joy on your hand and in your heart. I gave you more than enough joy for your lifetime. Unlimited joy. No need to be stingy with it. No need to economize. No need to save nor ration. Only need to spend. Spend joy as if it grew on trees, for, of course, it grows in your heart. Consider your heart a tree then on which silver leaves of joy grow and perhaps golden apples. Pluck them. Pluck enough to give away as you would zucchini from your garden.

I would give you joy this moment. Here, take it. I rain it down upon you like confetti or sunlight. I pour joy down upon you the way you pour a pitcher of lemonade. Fill the glasses, and then pour more. The more lemonade people drink, the more you pour. I am like that. The more you take, the more I pour.

If you could get into a habit of glumness, could you not just as easily get into a habit of joy?

Would you refuse the joy I offer you? I do not think you would, but perhaps you don't see Me offering it. I pour it down anyway.

If you cannot give joy this moment or receive it, is it possible that you could pass it on to someone else? Do not think you have no joy to give. Even a little joy is a lot. You do not know how much you can cheer up a friend or stranger. You do not know how much a smile from you might mean. Come to think of it, why don't you go the mirror and smile at yourself, this projected image of yourself in the mirror. Certainly you have frowned at yourself enough. Now smile for yourself and for Me. The whole world can be caught up in your smile. Your smile spreads far. It reaches Heaven.