There Will Be Laughter

“Blessed are ye that hunger now: for ye shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now: for ye shall laugh.” (Lu 6:21 AV)

 

That’s really good to hear!  We have forgotten how to laugh.  The joy has been surrendered.  Our world is filled with bad news and woe.  This is how the Devil wishes to keep it.   The more discouraged and despondent we are, the better he likes it.  We have wars to worry about.  A disease that is rampant and those who report it only concentrates on the worst-case scenario.  Prices are rising.  Financial collapse is on the horizon.  It seems as though there is little to smile at nowadays.  Hardships are coming on the church.  Real soon.  It will start with health concerns.  God’s people will be held to a standard that makes fellowship nearly impossible.  It will grow with warped enforcement of non-discrimination laws.  Freedom of speech and religion, the very foundation of our entire human government, will be taken away.  There will be much to weep over.  But Jesus promises those who weep will have a day wherein laughter will be the norm.  There is coming an eternity when all hardships are over and joy is the only thing we will feel!

My mother passed away three years ago this past March.  The day she passed, most of her children were in town.  The facility where she lay was very nice.  It was a hospice house with four bedrooms and two large sitting rooms.  As she was living out her last few days, our rather large family had a wonderful visit.  We swapped memories of days gone by.  Some memories are riddled with fond emotions like holidays, weather, or mealtime.  Other stories were those one could not help but laugh when they were shared.  Stories of bare-buttocks brothers going through airport security because the diaper he was wearing was far too heavy to stay above his hips.  Stories of my mother’s escapades or hilarious reactions to life were common.  My mother had a way of processing life that kept life more than tolerable.  She was a diffuser.  She knew how to take an intense situation and diffuse it so we could endure hardship.  Then the day came when we had to say goodbye.  There was a fair amount of weeping.  It was rough.  But a different tone took shape at the meal that followed her interment.  There was laughing again.  This seems to be the norm.  I have had the honor of officiating several funerals.  Each one ends the same.  A communal meal where loved ones share fond memories of the departed.  There is laugher again.  A therapeutic supplied by the Spirit of God to heal a great loss.

There are and will be many sorrows that come in this life.  Just ask Job.  These sorrows are temporary.  These sorrows pass with the years.  There is always joy in the morning.  There may be tears in the evening, but joy comes in the morning.  My mother is greatly missed.  Now that my father has also passed, there is a sense of loneliness that is hard to describe.  Not necessarily personal loneliness.  Rather, a sense that a large part of who and what I am has ended.  A definition that does not seem to be so relevant.  One thing I do know, however, is that if those whom I miss so greatly have placed their faith in Jesus Christ as their Savior, we will have an eternity of fellowship with them.  No sad goodbyes.  No tears or heartaches.  Only sweet fellowship with eternal laughter over the blessings which God bestowed.  We may have to weep now.  But it will not always be that way.  There will be eternal laughter over the blessings of God.  Many of which we were unaware of at the time.  Weeping is part of this life.  But it will have no part in the next.