Comfort and Joy in the Swedish Medical Center in WA 3.20.25
Comfort and Joy in the Swedish Medical Center in WA 3.20.25
It’s another edition of My Rhymes and Reasons and I’m your host Greg Asimakoupoulos. Greeting you today from the Swedish Medical Center in Sammamish Isqua just East of Seattle. I am next to the gift shop that is currently not open. I was intrigued by the names Comfort and Joy. Firstly it reminded me of that Christmas Carol that we sing that includes that praise you know which one I’m talking about.
God rescuing merry gentlemen let nothing you dismay, remember Christ Our Savior was born on Christmas Day. The refrain, of course, includes those words, oh Tidings of Comfort and Joy, comfort and joy. As I think of that phrase, comfort and joy. I think of the Journey of life and how we are called as followers of Jesus to be dispensers of comfort and joy.
There is that phrase that is often called a Swedish proverb, a Scandinavian proverb. I think my Norwegian cousins would like to beg to differ, they’d like to claim it as Norwegian so why don’t we just call it the Scandinavian proverb that says, “A shared Joy is a doubled Joy. A shared sorrow is half a sorrow.”
I like that and it’s true and that’s what keeps us motivated to be invested in the lives of other people. My friend Larry Snider, who is a part-time Barista at our local Starbucks, works 20 hours a week. He has for the past two decades to provide his family with benefits. This is because the Starbucks Corporation is very generous in providing benefits and educational stipend scholarships for those who work less than full-time. this frees my friend Larry up to do what he loves to do and… (you can hear about more in the video above)
