Since my post yesterday about my health was a bit on the sober side, I thought I'd lighten things up a little today. As a matter of fact, this morning I was listening to a fine sermon on Phil. 4:4, which the NLV renders as, "Be full of joy always because you belong to the Lord. Again I say, be full of joy!" The speaker went on to say that every day we should all think of at least one thing to smile or laugh about. Medicine for the soul, he said.
As I pondered his words, my mind went back to a chat I had yesterday with my daughter in Houston who's married to a pastor. We talked about everything under the sun it seems, from church life to family life to health issues to experiences we've enjoyed together. Years ago, when her husband was pastoring in Alabama, the three of us decided to run the Birmingham Half Marathon together. This was maybe my 35th half but their first, though they had trained for it by running a 5K and a 10K. I'll never forget when we crossed the finish line. My daughter's expression of joy was not to be forgotten.
Yesterday I said to her, "Do you remember how the three of us came in dead last?" She said, "Dad, we didn't come in last. There were runners behind us." "True," I replied. "But they were the sweepers!" We both got a big laugh out of that. (Sweepers, in case you're unfamiliar with racing lingo, are race staff who bring up the rear and make sure everyone finishes under the time limit. If they pass you, you are dropped from the race.)
Later in the day I had a great talk with a pastor friend down in Carolina. He's maybe 20 years younger than me but he's a father and a grandfather and one of the fittest men of his age that I know. We talked about how great it is to be lean but also how sometimes it can lead to awkward situations. "Yeah," I said, "like when people call you out for being skinny and unhealthy." Can't tell you how many times that has happened to both of us. Or how about trying to sit for any length of time on a hard bench or chair. It ends up starting to hurt like the dickens because you have so little fat left on your sitz bones. We both chuckled at that. Then he mentioned how cold you get when you have so little body fat. "I enter a room," he told me, "where everyone is saying how pleasant it is and I'm asking them to raise the thermostat." So true -- and funny!
One of the people in my life who smiled and laughed I suppose as much as anyone I've ever known was my wife. Becky lit up every room she entered. In fact, I think even the sun was jealous of her brightness.
We often laughed together. When we lived in Basel, we could only afford -- and barely afford at that -- a one room apartment. Notice I didn't say a one bedroom apartment. A one room apartment. That didn't keep us, however, from inviting my doctor father and his wife to join us for dinner one evening. I'll never forget the wife's expression when she entered our tiny dwelling. She said, not in words but by her expression, "Students of my esteemed husband live in a hovel like this?" When the evening was over and they had gone back to their three-story mansion in the city, Becky and I burst out in laughter. You see, at the time we didn't have much money. But we had the Lord and we had each other, and that was all that mattered.
After one particularly long train tour of several European countries, Becky and I decided to go to France to spend a few days at a chateau in Lamorlaye, about an hour north of Paris.
We caught a train from Frankfurt to Paris intending to take a connecting train that would carry us north to our destination. As we wandered wearily about the train station looking for the right platform, it suddenly dawned on us that Paris doesn't have only one train station but six! We had arrived at the Gare de l'Est but needed to get to the Gare du Nord for our connection. When we finally got there our train had long since departed. So we took a taxi to Lamorlaye and arrived at about midnight. Unfortunately, all the gates to the chateau were closed and locked. We had no way to call anybody inside so it became a matter of waiting until the morning before we could settle down in our room. We found a tree and lay down under it hoping to catch a few hours of sleep. It was so cold we ended up opening our suitcases and grabbing every sweater and jacket we could find to wear during that long, cold night. There we lay, cuddled up until the sun rose in the morning. Later we laughed out loud when we thought about what the Frenchmen must have imagined when they spied two vagabonds asleep under a tree!
Next time you find yourself stewing, give yourself permission to smile and laugh, okay?