Mirth

Mirth

I read recently that March is the month of mirth. Mirth is “gaiety with laughter” according to Webster’s pocket dictionary. What a wonderful gift laughter is. After accepting Grady’s proposal, my Dad asked me why I wanted to marry Grady. I responded, “He makes me laugh.” And he still does. Although he would have preferred my answer to reference his manliness, or irresistible physical attraction, the truth still speaks 18 years later, and he still makes me smile. I’m drawn to storytellers, witty, fun-loving folks. I gravitate to people with smiles and laughter as part of their personality.

I really wish there was a verse that stated, “Jesus laughed”, to counter the “Jesus wept”. But I’d like to think it was a daily occurrence unlike the weeping. That laughing was as commonplace as eating; so there wasn’t much need to reference it specifically. There was reference to many dinner parties and social gatherings. It seems as though a certain compassion and warmth emanated from our Lord. People were definitely drawn to Him. While definitely a man with serious plans, I have to believe between the recorded conversations were laughter among friends, jokes about events and places. I picture the Son of God as enjoyable to be around.

So often when I think of ‘religion’, it brings to mind stern rules, older serious, slightly grumpy adults that want everyone to know how sinful we all are. But when I think of Jesus I think of warmth, compassion, love and even laughter. I think of how much God gave us to smile and laugh at. I think of how John Eldredge explains this concept in his book, Sacred Romance, “He delights in our delight”. So what is more delightful than laughter? Anne Lamott calls laughter “carbonated holiness”. I love that. I’m thankful for the complexity of emotion we feel and express daily. The raucous laughter shared with friends is such a gift. The ability to laugh at ourselves is priceless and oh so useful.

Grady and I met at a flag football tournament. He has embellished our story to an art form. Legend has it now, that I flirted shamelessly with him while in the game, and truly piqued his interest after running over 2 girls instead of around them. I would counter that I first saw him wearing a hot pink bandana, tight cut off sweats, and his shirt tied up around his rib cage; it was the referee I was looking at instead of him, and I didn’t mean to knock over those girls. He offered me a coke on the sideline (where luckily he had changed into normal clothes). He followed up our brief conversation by giving my injured teammate a ride home, he didn’t know she was Wendy Whiner’s 1st cousin, and since she didn’t know me well, couldn’t supply him with any more info. He then ended up calling my organization at school and lying to get my phone number. He pretended to be a reporter that needed permission to use a picture of me. It seems a little worse when you know he was calling and lying to the Baptist Student Union. Nonetheless, the first date was set and changed the rest of my life.

I also smile when I think of our mini van. We bought the dreaded mini-van when I was pregnant with our 3rd child. I had fought the fight for as long as I could. I was supposed to be a convertible kind of girl, or at least something cute and fast. But the enlargement of our family was as imminent as my waistline so the time had come. It turned out to be a great car.

Matter of fact we kept the car 8 years, until it was totaled in an accident. When we bought the van, being avid music lovers, my husband and I both really wanted a CD player, so we saved up and finally purchased one after having the car 4 years. A month after having the CD player installed we went on a camping trip with friends. We were missing our flashlight and Grady went to look in the van. As he looked under the passenger side seat, he noticed a box he had never seen before, attached under the seat.

He called me over, and after further examination we realized it was a 6 CD player. Our loving friends were of course merciless in teasing us. We had wished for a CD player for years while we were riding around sitting on it. We had a good laugh at ourselves and luckily we were able to return the single CD player we had just bought. Each time we played CDs it was a reminder of our years of wishing, not knowing the gift was already delivered.

Take some time today and reflect on memories that make you smile, memories of laughter and fun. You might be sitting on some gifts of laughter yourself that just need a little looking around to find.