4 Ways To Find the Funny this Summer

A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.  Proverbs 17:22

When Cam and I were around year seven in our marriage (oh, a few years ago), we were struggling. So we saw a marriage counselor.

After meeting with the counselor a few times, he said to us, “I’ve really never had to say this to a couple before, but you guys over analyze everything. You over communicate. You’re working so hard on all your stuff and frankly, you two need to just go out and have some fun! Climb a tree or something.”

So we did. We got in our car, headed down to the lakeshore in Burlington, Ontario where we lived at the time, got out and held hands as we walked along in search of a good climbing tree.

Life can be hard and draining. But God has all kinds of medicine up His sleeve! Laughter is one of them.

Maybe you’re struggling like we are in our family with health issues. Maybe the diagnosis wasn’t what you’d hoped it’d be. Maybe the kids are driving you nuts. Maybe your vacation wasn’t close to relaxing, and the hotel room you spent way too much for was a bust. Maybe God isn’t speaking to you the way you thought He would. Maybe, just maybe you feel a bit jaded by it all.

Of course we have to engage with the pain of life. Yes, cry. Yes, run to God and pour out your achy heart. Yes, get to a counselor if your marriage is really stuck.

AND laugh. Do not neglect the power of a good belly laugh!

Here are four ways to help lift the burden of life, by finding the funny:

1.   Break Conformity. When you shop for whatever you shop for, let your child (or husband, or yourself) get something unexpected. Impractical. Just see what happens when you break conformity. Say you’re going to an event like a wedding or a shower, I know we tend to be all concerned about fitting it to what everyone else will be wearing. Don’t. Buy something that’s YOU, not what’s everyone else. And wink at yourself and God as you catch yourself in the mirror here and there.

Let the child wear the tiara and sparkly shoes to church!

2.   Tell the Stories. Share funny stories about you as a kid around the dinner table or picnic blanket, or campfire.

3.   Find the Funny. Find a fun family photo and text it to your family and say, “Caption contest. Go.”

4.   Play the Music - LOUD! And dance. Just dance.

It won’t change everything. But apparently God doesn’t want us indulging in our pain and turning into dry, decrepit, creatures who’ve forgotten we’re alive, until we’re not. 

Find the funny, friend. 

I’m real because God is so real.

~ Nancy