Inappropriateness and laughter. That pretty much sums up our family’s Thanksgiving this year. We have one crazy family, let me tell you. For three years now, I have been trying to think of a way to pay back my brother for giving our parents sex toys, and writing, “To Mom and Dad, From Aimee” on the wrapping paper. I have yet to get him back. This year, they played another practical joke on me … this one was HUGE. My 16 year old nephew and his 15 year old girlfriend were coaxed by my brother, sister-in-law and get this … my mother, to play this joke on me. They thought it would be hilarious to tell me they were pregnant. They had a sonogram (that they found on the internet) and everything. I was in total shock. But in my mind, what’s done is done! No sense lecturing them about their age and future … I needed to be supportive.
Imagine my shock when I realized it was a joke. AND that my very own mother was behind it all! (Some day, some way, I will get them all back for these practical jokes at my expense!)
You probably saw the video I posted of my brother and me wearing the t-shirts, “Wooden Spoon and Fly Swatter Survivor.” We laughed a lot that day. Then, my brother and sister-in-law wanted us to open our Christmas presents, early. My brother made a big-to-do about my gift being fragile and breakable, and kept reminding me to unwrap everything delicately. The first thing I unwrapped was a beautiful tea cup, delicate, indeed. As I finished unwrapping it, I looked at it and saw on the inside it said, “Bitch please.”
I kid you not.
How can I express the level of craziness we experience when we are all together, and still be a Southern Lady? Oh, that’s right. I can’t.
“Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.” - Luke 6:21 (NIV)
There were far too many years when weeping just seemed to be my way of life. But now, it’s laughter. Sure, we experience heartache and turmoil, but I can see the way God delivered us out of the misery, into the joy. So I am better able to implement hope, because I have seen how faithful God has been in the past, and He will continue to be faithful in the present and future.
If you are in a season of weeping, I get it. I really do, and I wish I could reach through your laptop or phone/ipad, however you are reading this right now, and give you a great big hug and whisper, “It’s going to get better. And you are going to laugh again.” Because that is precisely what I would tell you.
Consider yourself super blessed if you are weeping right now, for you will laugh. Take it from me, for so many years, I could not see an end to my heartache. But now? I’m in the season of laughing. God never fails to deliver on His promises.