This is Emily Thomas and today my guest is Jennifer Dukes Lee.

She is an award-winning journalist who covered crimes and natural disasters and things like that.

That sounds so interesting.

I forgot, though, and I'm kicking myself

for not asking her about the worst storm

she ever had to stand there and hold a microphone in.

So it sounds fun to do that job, but also, like, really cold and wet.

Anyway, she's also married to a pig farmer,

so I had the distinct opportunity to ask her all my questions about bacon.

So in case you have any, you're going to want to stay tuned.

Her most recent project centers on the topic of happiness.

It is a book called The Happiness Dare.

And I'm going to be honest, when I first got the book in the mail, I was skeptical.

Focusing on happiness feels really selfish and shallow and not like something that I should be spending my time

pursuing. It feels like as Christ's followers were just supposed to want the joy

of the Lord instead and isn't holiness different than happiness?

Because I knew I was interviewing her,

I had to dig deep into this

and challenge some of my preconceived notions

of happiness and see what God's words said about happiness and I was

really surprised at what I found you guys. What I realize is that I tend to assume

God is a grumpy God or that he's at least pretty exhausted from all of our shenanigans, but there's so much in the Bible about God rejoicing over us and wanting us to be glad.

...