Laughter and tears

I am grateful for the ability to both laugh and cry. Paul is one who laughs a lot. I don't laugh as often, but I do enjoy a good belly laugh now and then. Last Sunday the Pastor preached a sermon dealing with the question "How can a good and powerful God allow suffering?" The sermon topic had been picked weeks before, but it was perfect timing because a couple of days prior to that a woman in her twenties who had grown up in the church died of leukemia. We had been praying for God to heal her, but that was not His will for her. During the sermon he read a quote from Frederick Buechner, "For God to try to explain the kinds of things Job wants explained would be like Einstein explaining relativity to a littleneck clam" only he accidentally said "red neck clam" instead of "littleneck clam." Let me tell you I have never heard the congregation laugh as hard or as long as they did with that one. It was hard to stop laughing, but in the midst of a sermon on a difficult topic on a day when there was a funeral for a young woman, laughter was a blessing.

Another example that comes to mind was in the one room schoolhouse on Thursday. The teacher gave the kids spelling words and each wrote on their individual slates. She also gave some math problems, and they were to write the answer on their slate. One boy sitting near where I was standing wrote a big question mark on his slate after the teacher read a word problem. That really got my funny bone also. Of course there are many times my three kids say or do something that cracks me up. Sometimes I have to restrain myself from laughing because their behavior isn't appropriate. For example, when Oliver said "I'm done" and marched off the soccer field before the practice was over. I had to tell him to get back on the field and that he wasn't done until the coach said he was done, but inside I was laughing. I also have had some laughter while going through the photos from my dad's house. My mom labeled many of the photos on the back. This is extremely helpful and is a reminder to me that I need to use more text in my photo books, but sometimes what she wrote really cracked me up. For example, she gave the exact dimensions of the table shown in the photo. Or she had a picture of the kitchen and labeled

on the back that it was a photo of a refrigerator. Um I think that's obvious. Maybe she thought refrigerators would change so much in the future that a few decades later we wouldn't recognize it? Anyhow it provided moments of laughter. I also admit that I laughed at how thorough she was of taking pictures of every room in every house we lived in. She even included pictures of sinks and toilets - including the toilet in my first apartment in PA back in 1996. That made me laugh, and laughter is good for the soul. One last example would be today when Nadia told me she was going to memorize the book of Psalms. I am quite certain she had NO idea how long that book is. It's by far the longest book of the Bible. I told her it was probably better to start with a more reasonable goal, but I applaud her desire to memorize a book of the Bible (I think she is motivated by the knowledge that some of her cousins have memorized a couple of books of the Bible).

I also have cried more this past year than I typically do, and that's quite the understatement. At first the tears were over Paul's decision to switch careers. Then it was over watching my mom

suffer from the effects of cancer and chemo. And now the past three months it has been over her passing. I never know exactly what might prompt the tears to start flowing. I thought it might happen during this most recent trip to Maryland, but it didn't. This morning in church we sang one of my favorite hymns "Great is Thy faithfulness," and I lost it even though I was on the platform with the choir. I was overwhelmed with emotion because the last time I sang that hymn was at my mom's funeral. The choir stays on the platform for the first 30-45 minutes of both services. Paul stayed home this morning to watch the Giants football game. They were playing in England so the game was aired live at 9:00 am will be aired again this evening in the usual Sunday night time slot. Given that he is no longer a night owl, he didn't think he could stay awake until midnight so he opted to watch it this morning. He slept for 12 hours last night! He slept from 6:30-9:00pm and then from 9:30 pm to 7:00 am. I, on the other hand, slept from 10:30 pm to 6:30 am. Most of our marriage he rarely went to bed before midnight so it is a huge change.

Anyhow I opted during the second service to slip off the platform after we sang our anthem so that I would not be up there for a second time of singing that beloved hymn. I don't like crying in public, and it was nice to miss less of my Sunday School class. I am glad though that God gave us the ability to cry and the encouragement to "weep with those who weep." I also love Psalm 56:8 which says " You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book." I am not exactly sure what is meant by the phrase "collected all my tears in your bottle," but I find comfort in knowing that just as God knows the number of hairs on my head, He also knows how many tears I have shed. I'm really looking forward to an eternity in Heaven that will not include any sadness or tears.