Celebrating God’s Gift of Laughter

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I don’t laugh nearly enough. My husband will tell you that. Randy possesses a dry sense of humor, the kind that makes you pause, think and then laugh. Me? Not so much. He often reminds me to lighten up and laugh.

A time existed when I laughed without restraint in bursts of giggles or doubled over until my belly ached. I laughed at the tickling of my feet, at knock-knock jokes, at cartoon characters propelling off cliffs. Today I don’t watch cartoons or listen to knock-knock jokes or have ticklish soles. In the busyness and stresses of life, I feel like I’ve lost my spontaneous childhood ability to laugh.

But today, National Belly Laugh Day, reminds me that laughter holds value. I don’t need statistics and research results to show me the benefits of laughter. I can feel the positives whenever I laugh. Physically, mentally, emotionally. Laughing unleashes endorphins, chemicals in the body that help me feel good. Laughter lightens my mood, brings me joy, makes me forget for a moment or ten about responsibilities and worries.

I’d like to think Jesus laughed. Even though Scripture doesn’t tell us that Jesus laughed, He was human. And people laugh. Jesus wasn’t just some somber Savior. His words and actions brought joy and hope and light into the world and still do. In my logical thinking, if Jesus cried over the death of His friend Lazarus (as noted in John 11:35), He also could laugh.

The words of King Solomon in Ecclesiastes 3 remind us that there is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven...a time to weep and a time to laugh...

Consider Abraham and Sarah whom God gifted with a son when Sarah was well beyond child-bearing years and Abraham was 100 years old. They both laughed. It wasn’t necessarily the best reaction. But I expect most of us, too, would laugh in disbelief and wonder, “What is God thinking?” God had a plan. God keeps his promises. He revealed that in the birth of Isaac, whose name means “he laughs.”

I have a newborn grandson named Isaac. I expect he will cause me to smile and laugh often as we interact. Just like his nearly three-year-old sister. On a recent visit with the grandchildren, I listened as my husband read a book to Isabelle. She burst out laughing when he deepened his voice for the father character, pitched it high for the son.

At a recent poetry reading, I read a poem I’d penned about my last high school class reunion. The content was both serious and light-hearted. When I read the line about our chosen class song, “Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road,” the audience erupted in laughter. It was a profound moment. I could actually cause people to laugh with the words I’d written.

There is power in laughter. Whether incorporated into a poem or read in a book or prompted by a child, laughter heals, delights, makes a difficult situation easier.

Last June, right before I underwent surgery to implant a titanium plate into my shattered left wrist, I handed my orthopedic surgeon a frequent flyer card designed on my computer. Only a year prior I’d broken my right shoulder. I just had to laugh at the absurdity of breaking another bone within a year. My humorous offering lightened the moment, calmed me, and amused my surgeon.

I’ll never be easy-going like my husband who takes life much less seriously than I do. But that’s okay. God made us all different. Randy and I balance each other. Yet, I am trying harder to laugh more often, to embrace laughter in the seasons of life.

Audrey Kletscher Helbling

As a life-long Minnesotan, Audrey Kletscher Helbling appreciates a good Ole and Lena joke which pokes fun at a fictional couple of Scandinavian heritage. She also accepts that non-Minnesotans laugh at certain Minnesota idiosyncrasies like calling casseroles hotdish, speaking with prolonged o’s and our winter-time pastime of fishing atop frozen lakes.

January 24, 2019 | View: 3334 | Categories: Church, Christian Life