“He told them to celebrate these days with feasting and gladness and by giving gifts of food to each other and presents to the poor. This would commemorate a time when the Jews gained relief from their enemies, when their sorrow was turned into gladness and their mourning into joy.”

It’s not unusual for countries and religions to mark days of accomplishments and overcoming, but in industry we tend to allow those high points to meld into one day after another.  I love that the restaurant company, Yum! still celebrates “Founders Day”.  I don’t know if they still do it or not, but they used to celebrate it as a holiday with a day off of work for everyone to celebrate and remember the day the company spun off from PepsiCo into its own company.  This past weekend I was at a church in Dallas that celebrated their 25th anniversary.  That was cool.  But what was just as cool is that the dates of many other milestones of the church were also being celebrated all the goods and also many of the toughest times that were overcome.  In the business world, we could be more deliberate in remembering and celebrating the achievements that were made over the years that got us to where we are today.

Today marks the beginning of the Festival of Purim.  The Jewish religion celebrates today the turning of sorrow to gladness and mourning to joy. We each have some of all of these.  Today, can we think back and find a reason for gladness and joy?  We can if we remember that it was something that God did that brought us from there to here.  And even if today has started with some form of sadness or sorrow, let us trust in Him that this will turn and change so that one day soon we will have a new day of celebration to mark!

Reference:  Esther 9:22 (New Living Translation)