Bring A gift of laughter

Bring a gift of laughter,
sing yourselves into his presence.
Psalm 100:2 (MSG)

When my friend, Kathy, experienced hair loss due to chemotherapy she was strong in more ways than I can record. Her courage was remarkable, to say the least. She stood tall through her diagnosis, surgery, and chemo treatments. She bought a couple of wigs as she tried to prepare for inevitable hair loss.

Despite her best efforts, she was understandably saddened as her dark brunette mane thinned. She soon realized the full measure of the loss. She struggled to keep her composure and was visibly upset. She wondered if her husband, Mike, would still find her attractive; he wondered how he might somehow cheer her.

Mike had always been a jokester with a gift for bringing laughter into situations at just the right time. Once after Kathy had taken her wig off for the day, Mike saw it lying on the bed and couldn’t resist. He slid the hair over his own balding scalp and danced his way into the kitchen where Kathy sat eating a bedtime snack. When she saw him enter the room mimicking the moves of JLo, Kathy smiled. As he continued toward her singing... “Hey sista, go sista, soul sista, flow sista...”, Kathy almost fell out of her chair laughing.

For the first time in a long time, Kathy’s worry melted into giggles and she felt normal. The moment wouldn’t last forever but it gave them the umph to take the next step.

Mike brought the gift of laughter and with it a healthy release in a tense moment.

As you head out for the day today, I bet you’ll meet someone who could use a little “cheering up”. You don’t have to be Jerry Seinfeld or Jeff Foxworthy to provoke a smile, evoke a laugh or invoke a little humor.

If you’re having a hard time getting started, how about this one:

A middle aged woman, getting ready for bed, looks and the mirror and laments, "My face is all wrinkled, my hair is grey, my shoulders are hunched over, I've got fat legs, and my arms are all flabby." She turns to her husband and asks, "Can't you say something positive to make me feel better about myself?"

He studies hard for a moment thinking about it and then says, "Well, I'll say this for you, 'Your eyesight seems to be just fine.'"