“God blesses you who weep now, for in due time you will laugh.”
(Luke 6:21 NLT)
Everyone said it would be hard work.
You’ll be so sleep-deprived you’ll wobble in a fog, said the advice-givers as my delivery date approached. Be prepared . . . The house will never be picked up, the laundry will never stop, and neither will the crying. And forget about having a quiet moment to yourself.
Yes, as any mother, father, grandparent, or guardian who has cared for an infant or a toddler can testify, it’s tough. I remember being so exhausted that I looked forward to the end of maternity leave so that I could return to my job on the local daily newspaper and get some rest.
But the voices of experience forgot to mention something. Something paradigm-shattering, really.
In addition to the relentless weariness, self-doubt, and demands of parenting, it also turned out to be fun.
That was astonishing to me. In a life structured around diaper changes and midnight feedings I had no expectations of levity. But when baby Benjamin would tip back his cherubic head and giggle and giggle, there was no way I could keep a straight face. Or, when one-year-old Benjamin dragged a big book to my bed, climbed up next to me, pointed with sparkling eyes and said, “Wead,” the mirth of the moment warmed me from my toes to my temples. When, at three, Benjamin dressed up as a fish-man in medieval armor and challenged me to an underwater duel, I of course drowned in laughter.
I was a single first-time mother at age 40. How I got myself into that situation is not our topic. The pertinent fact is that I had walked away from God and His people after a horrible family tragedy. I refused to think of Him, say His name, or open His Book. And I certainly was not going to cross the threshold of any church building and pretend to worship a deity that didn’t exist. I was one angry mama. My behavior began to drift, too. I wandered into “the world,” determined to seek out the experiences I had been denied as an observant believer.
I was also grieving. In addition to the sudden and violent loss of loved ones, my world also had vaporized. All that I had been taught and claimed to believe felt like smoke and mirrors.
There was no purpose to life. Truth was a scam. And since there was no god, all rules were dust.
Yet, while my decade of hardcore rebellion led to plenty of heartaches from broken relationships, unhealthy living, and the absence of meaning, a thread of something else was being woven through it. A mystery I alluded to earlier.
God made me laugh. Even when it hurt.
At the time, I didn’t recognize that building forts under the dining table with Benjamin was a taste of divine revelry. I wasn’t aware that playing tag was a gift of the joy that God extends to all people. I didn’t know I was experiencing God’s “unmerited favor” while fencing with a pint-sized tyrannosaurus in pajamas. I was blind to His mercy and blessings—His “common grace”—available to all His children, believers or not. But because of it, I experienced moments of merriment, and through them, hope.
I didn’t play with Benjamin in order to make myself feel cheery; it just happened. The episodes popped to the surface of routine life like a beach ball bobs up when it’s let loose under water. It seems obvious to me now that, similar to how the colorful inflatable obeys the rules of physics (i.e., air is lighter than water) and can’t be kept down indefinitely, so also humor has the power to lift a heavy heart. It’s a law of the Creator’s nature.
The fun did require something of me, though: a willingness to participate. To be silly, undignified, and irrational. (Have you ever seen a creature who’s half man, half fish, and who jousts under water?) I’ve never been a merry sort of person. Melancholy and self-conscious would be more accurate. But playing became a daily thing in our house and it infiltrated everything.
I started to notice merriment everywhere. I have a memory of my quiet, dignified father on the carpet with legs crossed, playing Lincoln Logs with his two-year-old first grandchild and erupting with giggles alongside her. I had never ever heard him giggle. I can picture my step-grandfather—a retired Irish Canadian grocer who all his life played ragtime for dances throughout rural Wyoming—rifting on Joplin on our old family piano as everyone in the house gathers to sing, clap, and do a jig.
There still were times when the laughter was fraught with pangs of melancholy. Maybe they were hints at the intense “Joy“ that C.S. Lewis described as an unsatisfied desire for something that cannot be satisfied in this world.[1]
It’s pretty clear that all humans at some point experience such an unidentified holy longing, whether or not they hold a belief in a divine power. What I know now is that our playing and playfulness was an effort to stretch for something beyond the mundane. Something we could long for. An aspect of some sort of ultimate existence that could point to meaning. Human beings want to matter.
Looking back, I longed desperately to believe that a Creator of imagination and play and laughter was real. Otherwise, there was no basis for hope. (I often feel a modicum of admiration for materialists who go through life without a sense of transcendence on which to build a reason to live.) I think God was allowing a bit of comic relief to upstage the dull plot of my sorrow as a way to draw me closer to acknowledging goodness in the world, and therefore, Source of the Good.
When God made me laugh during deep despair, I began to hope. The experience of being carried by a different sort of divine comedy opened my eyes to a deeper understanding of God. As I healed, I slowly sought out others who were playful as well as good. I was still angry and sad and confused, but Benjamin needed a community. I did too, of course, but my little guy especially needed others for the formation of his precious soul.
We went where we were received like the lost silver coin the woman in the Luke 15 parable finds and invites her neighbors to celebrate over. Maybe the angels were feeling merry, too. For, “in the same way, there is joy in the presence of God’s angels when even one sinner repents” (Luke 15:10 NLT).
[1] C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life (HarperCollins, 1955), 17-19.
The featured image, “Hummer in Summer,” is courtesy of Lancia E. Smith and is used with her glad permission for Cultivating.
Anita K. Palmer has always turned to pen and paper to figure out what she thinks, feels, and believes. That propensity launched a career that started with editing a Christian publication (which soon went to magazine heaven — by no fault of her own, she swears). Then came 13 years on daily newspapers, followed by five as a university media relations officer. Since then she has made her way for two decades as an independent book editor, ghostwriter, copywriter, and book coach. Five years ago, free of family responsibilities, she happily stored a lifetime of possessions, stuffed her SUV, and headed for the hills of Colorado, which she testifies are full of goodness, truth, and beauty. She is blessed with many dear friends and a tiny family, including one kind and brilliant adult son.
Add a comment
0 Comments