JOB 5:22

Sometimes I seriously wonder what we would do if we couldn’t laugh. More and more as I continue on this journey I am seeing laughter and fun as a gift from God. It really helps especially today when we are constantly bombarded and overwhelmed with such bad news on every hand and side. It almost seems nonstop. It’s really like what Jesus said “. . . and upon the earth distress of nations with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; Men’s hearts failing them for fear; and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken” (Luke 21:25, 26). Today is like no other time we have seen in our lifetime or ever before. It’s almost like the unfolding of a dreadful, horrible movie, the only thing this is not the movies.

To be somewhat frank, these last few weeks have been horrible for me and my family. On Mother’s Day, two weeks ago my youngest sister and baby of the family shared with us the worst news. She was informed online that her test results from the CT scan were not good. It was placed in her online chart that she has stage four pancreatic cancer. Needless to say we were all traumatized and devastated, mesmerized and shaken to our very core. As the initial shock began to wear off we organized a twenty-four-hour prayer-chain and went into serious intercession, supplication, confession, thanksgiving and whatever prayer there is! We called the prayer warriors of our great Region and together we rallied in prayer and spiritual warfare.

Then I decided to travel to Florida to be with my sister, just to sit with her, pray with her and offer whatever comfort and support I think she may have needed. Together we prayed, talked, read scripture and cried. It was really intense and heavy. However, what I wanted to share with you is what somehow blessed and shocked me as I look back on our time together. It was her ability to still laugh as we grieved and mourned and shared together. She was still able to laugh at me and with me! I mean really laugh – and for this I thank God!

I really don’t think it was because I was that funny. I saw the laughter as divine. I saw it as God stepping in to help with the pathos and heaviness of it all. Now I must confess I could really do some things to cause her to laugh at me, but beyond that! I seriously think that God has a way of stepping into our awfully serious situations and sometimes breaking the intense heart-breaking, depressive, distressing situations with good clean humor and laughter to help brighten up our days and alleviate the excruciating pain, sent by the enemy to crush us and grind us to hellish despair.

Maybe, I am stretching it here, but very early in the Psalms, the Psalmist declared “Thou shall shew me the path of life: in thy presence is the fullness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Psalm 16:11). Job said in Job 5:22 “At destruction and famine thou shalt laugh…” We never make light of pain, but I know that our God knows exactly how to break through and lessen the intensity of the pain, even before he heals us. I find it amazing that we can still laugh even in our pain. It is a God-thing. I found it to be a great blessing that my sister could still laugh and in her laughing, make me laugh. Maybe nothing irritates the devil more! We can laugh even in the pain! To me that is divine!