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Topic: Laughter (10/18/04)
TITLE: When the Milk Just Won't Come Out Your Nose By Jennifer Deibel 10/20/04 |
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Growing up, my brother was the king of making things come out of his nose. I saw more liquid escape that boy’s olfactory organ than a soft drink dispenser at the local convenience store! Milk, soda, juice, punch, nothing was safe whenever Thom ingested it. That child found nearly everything funny! And I’m not talking just a small giggle and it’s over funny. I mean at the littlest notion, this boy was sent into convulsion of ecstatic laughter that seems to ignite everyone else in the room. Being his younger sister, of course I was in awe of this ability.
Now, let’s think about the other side of the coin. I so looked up to my brother and his talent not only for making almost every liquid known to man shoot out of his nose, but his knack for finding the hilarious in the mundane, the funny in the boring. I never understood how so much joy could well up in a person at such short notice. Now don’t get me wrong, I laughed, and still do. However, the instances of good, hardy belly laughs in my life seem to wane in comparison to people like Thom. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t seem to get up the gumption to just let a good guffaw rip.
What do we do when the milk just won’t come out of our nose? Everyone around us is holding their sides in joyful agony while we sit in the corner chuckle a few times and wait for everyone else to calm down. How do we deal with the loss or lack of joy in our hearts?
You may have expected this answer to come, and if you did, congratulations because you already knew the answer to your own question! The way we get over the blues and into the brightness of overwhelming joy is through and in the Lord. Psalms is full of declarations such as, “My joy is in the Lord”; “The Lord is my joy and my strength.” Our joy comes from sitting at the feet of the Master Crafter and soaking in His radiant delight. If He made the nose, certainly he knows the secrets to propelling liquid from it. So grab a copy of the Word, grab some milk, sit at His feet and let the good times roll!