Please Don't Lose This One Thing

"Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy; then they said among the nations, “The Lord has done great things for them.”   ... Psalm 126:2

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This morning Erma Bombeck and I went to the coffee shop.

Erma told me hilarious family stories, but then I paused, sipped my coffee and gazed out the front windows to the large hotel, river, homes and traffic--and remembered something. 

Twenty-five years ago I watched an interview with Erma where she reminisced about a visit with a young woman in prison who'd killed her little child. This woman would spend her life's remainder there. 

She'd only recently discovered Erma's books via the prison library. Erma spoke a bit with her about what she'd done and the woman told of her struggles in patience with her often-crying, disobedient baby.

Erma said she, herself, had often needed to use her sense of humor when dealing with her own three boisterous children, to which the woman hung her head and replied, "I didn't know you could laugh about those things. No one ever told me."

Even decades later that story often returns to haunt me. 

It reminds me that a sense of humor can save relationships, our days (from turning sour) and our minds, even. And that God's joy is strength that keeps us from doing what could ruin everything.

And honestly? Since the last presidential election many folks (it seems to me) have lost huge chunks of their sense of humor. They're not who they were, but angrier. Most things have become a very-big-hairy deal and their words sound like lectures (which gets old). And their friendships disappeared soon after the laughter did.

And some people, sadly, haven't survived.

Politics, traffic jams, children, spouses, pets, bills, long lines, loud celebrities. The stalled car. The job loss. The broken washing machine. The too small house or budget. "I didn't know you could laugh about those things."

Well yes, you can. With a sense of humor--and with a huge God who cares about it all.

If you won't let this crazy world knock you down. If you at least try spinning a thing from its dark to its bright side, instead. And if you determine to remember this:

"Greater is He who's within me than he who's within this (it's too easy just looking at the bad) world."   ... 1 John 4:4, tweaked


Always remember that, ok?

"A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones."   ...Proverbs 17:22

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Speaking of a sense of humor--




At 5:00 pm on Sunday, we stepped through the door of another of Naomi and Justin's early-evening-thank-goodness restaurant gigs and oh! 

In honor of Tom's birthday, Naomi had invited three old friends we'd not seen in oodles of years (she'd hinted she might), also, another friend arrived because I'd clicked 'interested' (re: this gig) at Facebook, plus, dear, faithful Kellee awaited us there as well as Justin's parents who we'd not yet met.

Two of these ladies are sisters and two of the funniest gals I know. If there's a funny spin to be found, they'll spin it that way and you'll come away, smiling. For hours, refreshed.

Wow! Grander goings-on than simple-livin' ol' Tom and I are used to. 

We shouted over the music with our old friends and caught up, took pictures, ate dinner, laughed much and had a royal lovely time. (All wispy-voiced on the way to the car, I told Tom I'd been meaning to, at home, increase the volume of my voice for times likes these, but had hesitated lest the neighbors believe I'm yelling at myself. heh.)

Always, it's great to be with people with whom whole decades of time away still create no awkwardness. It's a God-thing, I believe, rather like a preview of our someday reunions in Heaven.





A sense of humor is a major defense against minor troubles.

 ---Mignon McLaughlin


A person without a sense of humor is like a wagon without springs. It's jolted by every pebble on the road. 

---Henry Ward Beecher

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