Those Times When It’s Best To Resort To Humor

Life has a way of presenting us with many opportunities to challenge and stretch us.  Depending on how we respond (and of course the nature of the occasion), we can respond with tears, angry outbursts, or humor.

Humor is the best option of the three responses when it comes to some of my days — or maybe most of my days.

Some of the past few days have presented me with the following situations:

My oldest son was diagnosed with pneumonia last Friday.  That is not the humorous part.  The humorous part was not the fact that he miserably vomited all over the floor right after getting a bath to lower his 103.9 degree fever.  The humorous part for me was as I kneeled on the vomit-covered floor and guessed at what my son had eaten that day.  It was in laughing as I told my husband that this is definitely not what you picture when you think of motherhood.

I laughed later that evening when I told my husband how I had to catch my son’s vomit in my hands so it wouldn’t spew all over the doctor’s office.  I chose laughter.

At first I didn’t laugh the next day when a different situation occurred.  I have been using cloth diapers on my 17-month-old.  At times, it is necessary for me to remove larger waste through dunking the diaper in the toilet several times.  As I was dunking a dirty diaper in the toilet before transferring it to the bucket where I further process the dirty diapers, my daughter decided to imitate me.  She did so by grabbing a dirty diaper from the bucket and slopping it across the floor in her attempt to also dunk it in the potty.  Dirty waste water was slopped across my floor, my hands were holding a dirty diaper, and I had an additional mess to clean.  Would I react with anger, see the humor in it, and see the heart of my daughter?  (She merely wanted to help me.)

Life is full of these opportunities — opportunities to see things from a different perspective, from a godly perspective. 

Circumstances, people, our own sin natures are less than perfect and pleasant.  The question is how do I respond?  How do I walk with grace when life has a way of slopping dirty diapers across our way, throwing messy relationships in our path, and we are still dealing with the stench of our own sin natures?  The answer is found in God’s grace and in His Spirit.  To keep it simple, let me conclude with the following beautiful quotes:

“If the manner of life under grace is superhuman, so, also, the provided enablement is supernatural,and is limitless as the infinite power of God …. Too much emphasis cannot be placed on the fact that, since God has proposed the impossible rule of life and provided the sufficient Spirit, the believer’s responsibility is thereby changed from being a struggle of the flesh to being a reliance on the Spirit. Grace thus introduces a new problem for the believer’s life which is wholly foreign to every aspect of the law. It is the problem of the adjustment of the heart to the holy presence of the Spirit, and of maintaining the unbroken attitude of dependence on Him.” Lewis Sperry Chafer

“Holiness is in the spirit and of the Divine Spirit. It is not in forms and ordinances… It is not in prohibitions and self-denial. …Christ lives in men through the Spirit. He is no longer a model but a living Presence. Christian faith does not copy Him; it lives Him. Christ is not imitated but reproduced. Life is sanctified because He possesses it, lives it, transforms it. The Spirit of God does not work upon us; He lives in us. This is the contrast between works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit … Fruit does not come by toil but by appropriation, assimilation, and abiding. Holiness makes life fruitful because it abides in the Living Word and gives free scope to the Spirit of Life.” ~ Samuel Chadwick

Laughs with L-Son Continues

We are half-way through June, and the weeks are flying way too fast.  I am trying to hold onto them, but some days it feels like I am flying the kite of life in a hurricane rather than a gentle breeze.

Speaking of gentle breezes, this past week has been absolutely perfect.  I’ve enjoyed gardening, swinging with the boys, going to a park, relaxing on our hammock, and playing games with the boys.  I wish we had this type of weather all summer or even year.  🙂

Before June is over and I haven’t written a blog, I thought that I would at least share a couple of funnies from our L-Son.

Yesterday evening as I was playing “Memory” with the boys, L-Son kept getting lots of matches.  In response to my telling him that he was doing very well, L-Son said, “I must have my thinking caps on.”

Today L-Son had a little cut on his toe.  He asked me to bandage it.  Prior to cleaning it with Peroxide and putting a Mickey Mouse bandage on it, he asked me if it was going to hurt.  I replied, “Not too much.”  L’s response: “That means it will hurt.” Laughing I told him that he was very smart.

As the Hubs was tucking L-Son in for the night, he saw that L-Son was basically asleep.  Hubs gently called L’s name and asked him if he was awake.  L-Son replied, “If I am talking, I am awake.”

Yes, he is one smart boy. 🙂

 

Laughs With L-Spm

L’s funny quotable this morning:
“Mommy, my belly button is hurting.”

Me: “Why is it hurting?”

L: “Because there’s trash in it.”

Me: “Well, then take the trash out of it.”

L: giggles follow, accompanied by his brothers’ and my own laughter.

More Humor

I wish that I would remember more of the funny things the boys say.  I guess that is one of the main reasons why I blog — so I can remember all the cute things about my boys.  I think they’ll enjoy reading some of it too when they are older.

Here are some of our sons’ latest quotes:

Will came running in from outside and pointed to some stuff on his legs and gravely asked, “What is on my legs?”  Jonathan and I inspected them and said, “It looks like some of the tomato soup you spilled earlier.”  Will: “I cleaned that off my legs.  Do you think this is leprosy?”  Jonathan and I exchanged smiles and replied, “No, it’s not leprosy.  Why did you think it is leprosy?”  Will: “Because I learned about it in Sunday school.”  Well, at least he was listening.  🙂

On Sunday, I had moussed the boys’ hair, and as I was getting them breakfast, I told each of them that they looked “sharp”/very handsome.  When I came to carrying Luke downstairs, he turned to me, saw my wet hair (looked all moussed too) and said, “You look sharp too, Mommy.”

I can’t remember the context to this discussion, but somehow the boys were talking about babies.  Luke then turned to us and said, “Daddy and Mommy, you should make a baby.”  I wonder from where he got that?!!!  🙂

“Luke Laughs”

Here are some recent funny quotes from Luke:

He overheard me kissing Jonathan and saying that I am so thankful that he is my husband.  Luke interrupted with, “No, he is my husband!”

Tonight as Jonathan was tucking Luke into bed, Lukey said, “Pop-Pops are squirrelly.”  That is Jonathan’s term for someone who is being mischievous.

Potty Talk

We have a particular son who is guilty of the misdemeanor of talking what we call “potty talk.”  As a result, we do not use soap, nor hot sauce because of their adverse physical affects.  Rather, we use a small dose of vinegar which tastes horrible but is otherwise unharmful to the offending child.

This particular son was talking about Satan trying to get us to do bad things.  He then gave an additional example; he said, “Satan wants us to talk potty talk.”

This may not seem very funny to you, but Jonathan and I both caught the glimmer in each other’s eye at this remark and had to hide our smiles quickly before erupting into full-scale laughter.  Ah, the joy of sharing “twinkles in the eyes” as we enjoy the humor in the things our boys say and do!