Pickles and Giggles

So. It has been almost a whole week since I last posted (my apologies for the long silence)....I've been sick with a bad flare of my arthritic disease and haven't been able to think of anything --let alone anything humorous for days --other than pain. My hands right now look like beach balls bouncing around on the keyboard...and the number of typos I'm making is certainly not humorous -Not to me anyway. This flare came on complete with fever and chills and pain in every single joint in my body..So no, this house hadn't been full of giggles for a while.

My problem right now, in shifting gears, is that I was just chatting online with a friend in Texas, and at first we were doing what we do best: making each other pee our pants in laughter. Some people just bring out the "funny" in me. And this woman does that better than anyone else. I am sure that we were cut from the same cookie cutter when God put us together. And she is as much an odd cookie as I am (although we won't tell her that- our secret; because I can't think of many people who would like to be cut from the same fabric as I. And yeah, I know I'm mixing metaphors. It's MY blog...)

But at the end of our chat, we began by talking about the severe drought she is facing in Texas, it not having rained for five months there....and then our talk wandered to gardens, buying extra freezers, generators, and the seemingly inevitable crash of the US economy and the fall of the almighty dollar. So you can see, from the train of thought we were riding, that our talk ended on a more sombre note. So , shake it off, Cynthia....!

But in our conversation we talked about how easy it is for us to be funny together...the jokes just kept flowing in our own dry style which just really tickled the other conversant. And I mentioned to her how hard it is to be funny with some people (who shall remain nameless-in the cause of maintaining the friendships of several humorless people I know.) People who take themselves too seriously and can't laugh at themselves worry me. And should probably scare me. But instead it brings out the devil in me. Because you see: I take it as a divine mission to get them laughing. And it is hard work in the case of some folks. Especially the more pickled amongst my church friends. And why is it that these people are usually amongst the more mature amongst us?? Does our sense of humor burn out, somewhere along the line? Is it just inevitable that the pain and sorrow of life just really eventually kills our ability to laugh?? But no, that theory falls flat on its face when I look at my lovely friend, Esther.

Esther has had the hardest life of anyone I've ever met. She faced starvation as a child in Nazi Germany and escaped to South America where she lived...and married a harsh and difficult drill sergeant of a man. She has had incredible health challenges all of her life...A cellular disease which prevents her from healing; a life long infection picked up in S. America which occasionally flares up leaving her with painful sores on her, which do NOT heal due to the other illness. A fractured hip which required replacement; and many other complications have plagued her life like a blight of flies about her head. YET: Esther has the best sense of humor of anyone I ever met. She loves to laugh. And she says things like "When people tell me that I'm not healed because I lack faith, I just want to kick them!" and the image of this diminutive 4' foot something woman hauling off and kicking someone leaves me on the floor laughing.

Esther right now is in the hospital following her second leg amputation in recent days.

Sigh.
If anything could dampen a sense of humor, it's that--that and the months of agonizing pain she's just come through. And you would think it had. I thought it had in the many phone conversations with this sweet friend where she cried out her doubts and fears....and discouragement. But you know what? The devil himself can't keep this woman down. The last I talked to her; her laughter rained on my ears like the refreshment my other friend seeks from the reluctant rain.

Esther is back.

Legless. and Home-bound. But her prayers are not home-bound. They rain down on God's people and God's work, nourishing us and it like a beautiful spring rain, encouraging us and bringing it to fruition. I think, personally, that it is Esther's wonderful sense of humor that I like the best about her. That and her faith. And it flies in the face of the pickle pusses which have haunted the church for generations. When God saves and sanctifies us; he does not quarantine our sense of humor! NO! He releases it to shower the rest of his people like the summer rain, so badly needed in Texas.

I need to grasp that tightly when my body swells up like a toad and hurts like the dickens. Even my friend Esther's laughter was stifled in days of pain. But we can't let it kill our humor completely. Put it in a safe place; and at the first sign of relief, bring it out and put it on with JOY...because it is a gift.

Just like the rain.