“A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.” Proverbs 17:22

I watched a team in Perth, Australia get crushed yesterday, completely overwhelmed. The game was Australian football, an aggressive, 18-men-to-a-side, continuous action, contact sport on a large, outdoor, oval pitch. The first quarter score alone was 49-4. It didn’t get much better. A sell-out crowd of 60,000 fans endured witnessing a massacre at home. I sure don’t wanna see that team stay down.

How do you recover from life’s crushing blows? Like yesterday, they do come. They crack the beach of our spirit like a huge ocean wave, stagger us like a punch from a champion prizefighter, and level us like a blindside sack of a football quarterback.

The answer? Apply the good medicine of a cheerful heart. It is balm to the mind, revives the soul, and resets the spirit.

And where does…