A Cheerful Heart is Good Medicine

 “A cheerful heart is a good medicine, but a downcast spirit dries up the bones.” (Proverbs 17:22)

Last weekend a staff member commented that it was good to hear laughter in the congregation during the service. She believes it attracts more people to our church when they hear how happy and fun we are. I agree with her! When we count our blessings here at PCM we have lots to be thankful for and show it with joyful laughter.

"The power of humor can transform heads and hearts," said Michael Farrell, author and publisher. He believes God gave us a whole system of facial muscles designed just for laughing; so we must use them! We are created to laugh! Yet, life is a mix of tragedy and comedy. Soren Kierkegaard wrote: “Wherever there is life there is contradiction and wherever there is contradiction the comical is present.”

As our church seeks to connect more people to Jesus Christ, we can do so with our facial muscles to greet visitors and old friends with smiles and laughter. People are automatically attracted to laughter when it is positively based on God’s good humor. Plus, a light-hearted look at life can give us hope and optimism in times of trouble.

God had a plan when human creation was blessed with the ability to laugh. Laughter lowers your blood pressure, improves your digestion, and increases the serotonin in your brain that enhances your mood. One of my favorite sounds is a baby’s belly laugh when playing peek-a-boo. I find it impossible to not laugh along with the baby I hear laughing. Humor is contagious! (I can't help but laugh when I look at this photo of my son, Ian, who was laughing at me when I took this picture.)

As a Psychiatric Nurse Therapist/Pastor, I must share with you more of the mental health benefits of humor. Laughter adds joy and zest to life, eases anxiety and fear, relieves stress, improves mood, and enhances resilience. A dose of laughter is important to have each day. Look up a new joke-a-day on the internet and start your day with a laugh. Share the good medicine by making one of your daily goals to make another person laugh heartily and positively.

Strive to see the funny side of tension, disagreements, disappointments, or surprising changes in plans. Marriage counselors say that one of the key qualities to a successful marriage is when one of the couple is able to step back and diffuse an argument with genuine positive laughter or lightheartedness. Not to ignore the problem, but to give a new perspective on it that changes the tone from hopeless to hopeful.

God created us to enjoy three L’s:  to laugh and love and live together. Angela Macnamara suggests it is best to seek the lighter side of life in all circumstances. She said, “There is no period of life that does not have its own silver lining.”

As we become more “silver,” over time, let us keep the gift of laughter active to enhance our faith and mental health status as we respond to the contradictions and calamities of life on earth. (For more on the health benefits of laughter see: http://www.helpguide.org/life/humor_laughter_health.htm)

A Dangerous Woman?

A Faithful "Dangerous Woman"

My Grandma Thaxton, pictured above, had a big positive influence on my life. She taught me what a strong faithful Christian woman looked and acted like. Fern Thaxton raised three little girls as a single mother during the Great Depression in Boelus, Nebraska. She supported her little family by working fulltime as a schoolteacher. When this photo was taken, Grandma was riding on her favorite horse, Daisy, who carried her on the daily trek to teach her "little folks" in a one-room school house.

Grandma may look meek and mild in this photo, but she truly was what Lynne Hybels would call: "a dangerous woman." Why? In her book, Nice Girls Don't Change the World, Hybels says, "A dangerous woman is one who shows up with everything she is and joins the battle against whatever opposes the redeeming work of God in our lives and in our world. A dangerous woman delves deeply into the truth of who she is, grounds herself daily in the healing and empowering love of God, and radically engages with the needs of the world."

My Grandma Fern lived a full life loving God and caring for children by teaching during the week at a small public school and also every Sunday at her little Methodist Church's Sunday School. Even after she retired from fulltime teaching at age 73, she volunteered as a private tutor for special needs children in her home.

Grandma never left Nebraska in all her 93 years, but she still fit Hybels' description of a "dangerous woman" who: cherishes children, embraces the elderly, and empowers the poor; who prays deeply and teaches wisely." As her adoring granddaughter, when I looked into her eyes and listened to her speak, I could see she was a strong and gentle leader, who sang songs of joy and talked down fear; who never hesitated to let passion and conviction compel her and righteous anger energize her. She was a "dangerous woman" who overflowed with goodness in the name of God and by the power of Jesus. By that power and God's amazing grace, Grandma Thaxton changed the world for those whose lives she touched in Nebraska. And she continues to change the world through us her offspring and for generations to come. Thanks be to God for faithful dangerous women!