“Enjoy” by Trillia Newbell – Review

I am currently reading a book called “Enjoy – Finding the freedom to delight in God’s good gifts” by Trillia Newbell. I received this book from ‘Blogging for books’. I have done two book reviews so far, “How to own it” by Sallie Krawcheck, and “The Women of Easter” by Liz Curtis Higgs. I thoroughly enjoyed writing these, and have been looking forward to doing a different book. “Enjoy” is a faith-filled illustrative, scriptural based book on experiencing the fullness of life, and truly learning how to enjoy life in general. They cover the basis with scripture such as 1 Thessalonians that says to “rejoice always”.

They also reveal that joy is a fruit of the spirit – something that is developed and nurtured within us. I was a little unsure of doing a review on a Christian book, because some people aren’t religious, and it caters to people who believe in the Holy Bible. I was brought up in a Christian home, so I find this kind of reading therapeutic for me personally. I like how they talk about gifts, gifts He intends for our enjoyment. We have been given gifts in life. For example, I am truly learning the gift of writing. Growing up, I did love my books, and relished in an Enid Blyton story, but I honestly never thought I would create my own website, and write personal stories on my blog. This happened during my late twenties, when living in a small country town called Merredin, so it became a creative outlet for me to break out, and just write.

We can experience the fullness of enjoyment as we use our gifts daily. We can and should ‘enjoy, delight and rejoice’!

Have you struggled with enjoying things in life, such as gardening, or just sitting down in your lounge and reading a good novel, or listening to classical music?

Sometimes we feel confused about the significance and purpose of leisure, but it is really quite simple. Turn on the radio, and dance your heart out, or sing to your hearts content. It is with learning to enjoy, recognize and appreciating things like leisure that you learn to see more clearly, and more passionately.

I particularly like how they say in the first chapter that there must be purpose in order for us to make sense of the world, and that we can easily fall into the snare of discontentment. It would make life hard to live if you are not feeling content with yourself. Life was created for us to enjoy, so, do things for yourself that would truly make you feel a sense of joy.

Through this book you can gain a deeper understanding of what it means to delight in good things, and to simply, enjoy your life. I also like how they created an “Enjoy Project” as a tool where there is a list of suggestions at the end of each chapter, and you can decide which suggestions you would like to do, such as  journalling and you can write down if it was effective or enjoyable. For example, they put ‘start a blog series’, when I started blogging I felt a sense of joy and achievement from typing and it was out of pure joy that I started doing it.

If you do something similar to this, or just writing anything down in a journal, you will feel challenged, encouraged and inspired. We are not called to do life on our own, we are created to also work together and have relationships where we can sit down and talk to one another sharing our goals and dreams and aspirations for the future. That is one of the best things you could ever do, is get with people and talk about what you want to do with your life, and then truly embrace your god given talents. Our goal can also be to learn what it truly means to enjoy. Maybe create a random encouragement card to someone that you admire – investing in other people is worthwhile.

I love how at the end of every chapter there is a section/list on what you can do to create that joy, for example, scheduling a coffee date with a friend, making a meal for someone, or making certain lists. And each chapter starts out with an inspirational quote, which is pleasant to start off with.

I particularly liked Chapter Nine, which is called “The Art of Life” opening up with the sentence, “It’s interesting how something can be so central to your everyday life and then gradually fade away”. I have had this in the area of friendship specifically, and also when playing an instrument. My life was focused on piano playing for about eight years, but over the past few years I have forgotten what its like to sit down, and let my fingers tap away with such joy in my heart, and I miss those days. Sometimes life gets in the way of enjoyment and it is important for us to delight in everything that we do. If certain obstacles prevent us from fulfilling our dreams it is easy to fall into the trap of self-pity, we need to put our hope into pursuing and cultivating a great life for ourselves. This chapter really stood out to me because it’s so easy to get lost along the way that you forget to truly enjoy life.

You can delight in a variety of things, and I particularly liked that chapter because it talks about the arts. I delight in painting and music, and theatre, so it really stood out to me.

Last, but not least, the last chapter called “Everlasting Enjoyment” focuses on the spiritual side of things, delighting in not only the here and now, but looking forward to the future, and it talks about faith and hope. To be truly complete, you must have hope. I particularly like how they use scripture such as Romans 5:35 how it says that ‘suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope’, and especially it ends with a C. S. Lewis quote: “For the present is the point at which time touches eternity.

So, I hope that even if you don’t read this book, that you have learnt something to truly learn to enjoy your life by doing things that you love.

“Enjoy!”