Day Twelve Laughter
Laughter, the healing power of a smile, will empower you to quickly charge through the steps of grief that leave dark clouds of sadness hanging over you. You must find a way to lighten your heaviness, and allow the therapeutic sound of laughing to continue the healing process. It will not come naturally, for you are mourning the loss of someone you love. It is easier to stay in the sadness than take steps out of the comfort of your pain.
I am so blessed to have some awesome friends who took these steps with me. They convinced this 53 year woman to take a blessed ski/tubing adventure just at the right time. A girl trip they said, it would do me good to get away, to have some fun. Oh how right they were! We laughed in the car on the way, we laughed as we strapped on skis for the first time in many years, we laughed as we watched each other make very ungraceful movements down the hill, we laughed as the ski instructors and lift operators assisted us back up from our falls, and we laughed at the shear pleasure of the wind in our face as we rode inner tubes down very steep slopes. How amazing is my God to allow me to feel such joy in the midst of my deepest sorrow.
David spoke of this kind of laughter in Psalms. Much like the pain we feel in our loss, he must have remembered the pain from a recent battle, one that looked hopeless to all involved. A battle that seemed to have no hope, where many lives may have been lost during the war. Just when they thought they might lose, the great powerful God turned the tide, and their mouths were filled with laughter, they sang out in joyous tunes, and rejoiced as the victory was handed to them.
Psalm 126
1When the LORD turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream.
2Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing: then said they among the heathen, The LORD hath done great things for them.
3The LORD hath done great things for us; whereof we are glad.
4Turn again our captivity, O LORD, as the streams in the south.
5They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.
6He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.
A word of caution here…my spirits were not permanently lifted. Just after this trip I went into a few days of inner reflection, and at one point after returning, a particularly heavy cloud settled over me. Satan tried to chase away the new confidence my laughter had built. He will battle you with all he has got. Satan will try to convince you to hide in your pain again. But I woke one morning soon after with the most joyous attitude. My God is so much stronger than Satan, and he wants me to grow and learn from my pain.
David must have battled the same way. Many of his Psalms begin with desperate cries of help. They describe a man who is under a dark cloud of oppression, struggling to see past the darkness of the cave he hides in. Then he remembers a time when God was with him, and the cloud is overtaken by pure mirth. His tears once again turn to joy, and he ends his song in rejoicing. For he remembers the great things his Lord hath done for him, and his confidence returns.
As I revise this page for publishing on my blog…almost two years from the date I lost my sweet Mitchell…I am still battling to laugh more than I cry. I am learning to limit my exposure to great novelists like Nicholas Sparks…and busy myself with more things that will create the positive laughter that helps me heal. The bible tells me in Ecclesiastes 3:1-13 that there is a time for everything…
1 For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: 2 a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; 3 a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; 4 a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; 5 a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; 6 a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; 7 a time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; 8 a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace. 9 What gain has the worker from his toil? 10 I have seen the business that God has given to the sons of men to be busy with. 11 He has made everything beautiful in its time; also he has put eternity into man's mind, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. 12 I know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live; 13 also that it is God's gift to man that every one should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil.
… God gave us a gift of happiness that we should savor and strengthen to help us live through the seasons of pain and sorrow. Laughter helps us practice this gift!
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