On laughable things

laugh·a·ble
ˈlafəb(ə)l/
adjective
  1. so ludicrous as to be amusing

    - - - - -

Five years.

I drove away from school with our school sign in my review mirror and just like that, this girl has five years of teaching under her belt. It's almost laughable when I remember my very first day of school five years ago driving home with that same school sign behind sobbing and deciding how I would tell my principal I was quitting. I simply couldn't do it. Simply didn't have it in me. That's especially laughable when I consider that two years ago, I was chosen for District Teacher of the Year.

Five years.

We drove away from the mountains this past weekend with the Lilley's cabin in our review mirror and just like that, this boy and girl have five years of marriage under their belt. Aaron's parents bought that cabin shortly after we started dating and I remember my first time there hauling rocks to line the driveway. Secretly, I hoped that I would become part of their family one day and be able to tell our children that I helped set this cabin up. That's laughable considering we started dating our senior year of high school when Mr. Smooth asked me to be his girlfriend while attaching the bikes on his mom's mini van after our biking date. We were just two kids in love, looking up at the stars, and dreaming about life with not a clue what we were doing. We weathered four years at different schools by the grace of God. And I still marvel at getting to wake up next to him each day.

Five years.

I pull into our carport piled high with woodworking equipment, with the dogs barking at my arrival, with the vegetable vines spilling over our cedar boxes, and just like that, we have turned from college students into townies. Five years ago, we packed up a U-haul and drove away from my parent's gray stucco house that I had called home for 22 years in our review mirror. We pulled into a tiny house in this tiny college town and stayed. Even though some of our dearest friends would come and go. Even though we would be the ones to help pack up their U-hauls and watch as they pulled out of our driveway while we stood waving in their review mirror growing smaller by the mile. But we stuck around. We bought a foreclosed, very-in-need-of-love house and put down roots. The house projects we have attempted and completed are laughable. Just two do-it-yourselfers grateful for youtube, the internet, and other crazies like us.

Five years.

I pull out of my friend's driveway after a girl's night of wine, appetizers, and stories, with her little blue house in my review mirror,  and just like that, I have found myself as part of a family. Five years ago, I joined this group of mismatched, Spirit-filled, Jesus-loving people and have come to call them family. The fig trees, narrow hidden pathway, and the leaky, musty basement church building that I entered five years ago are now demolished, fenced off, and ready for new high rise apartments. Instead, we now join together in a different building outside of Clemson, knowing it's not the building, but the people that make a church. It's laughable that we are still there given that we have had our share of tears, frustrations, and exhaustion, but what family doesn't have all those things? I have been challenged, humbled, encouraged, and strengthened by these brothers and sisters in Christ. I have seen real grief and sorrow. Real prayers and faith. Real joy and laughter. Real healing and wholeness. Real reconciliation and forgiveness. Real generosity and community.

Five years.

- - - - -

I wonder what the next five years hold for us. I wonder what mountains and valleys await. I know what mountains I am praying to be moved. I have a few hopes for our family. But mostly, I know that in five years when I look in the rearview mirror, what I see will be more beautiful, colorful, and transforming than I can imagine.

May the next five years be as laughable. Because in attempting the laughable, we find God breathing life, healing wounds, overcoming circumstances.

I've heard it said, "We make plans and God laughs," but sometimes I think the opposite is just as true.

God makes plans and we laugh. 

But that's a good place to be. To have God ask you to do something so silly, so ludicrous, so outside of your element, so humbling, so bold, to tiring, so challenging, so small and seemingly insignificant or so grand, so terrifying or so exhilarating that success can only fill us with amazement.

Over and over in the Bible, we see this as a response to God's work: being filled with amazement.

When the three men King Nebuchadnezzar tied up and threw into a fire start dancing wildly untouched by the flames with a fourth person (assumed to be Jesus), the King is filled with amazement.

Before Joshua went with the Israelites to demolish an enormous wall around a city by merely walking around it seven times and then shouting (a very laughable plan on God's part), Joshua told them to consecrate themselves for he Lord was going to do amazing things tomorrow.

Jesus heals the blind and the deaf by mixing spit and mud and rubbing it on their eyes. He calms the raging storms with only a word. And over and over the people are filled with amazement.

The Holy Spirit descends upon the believers and they start speaking in different languages. Some people watching were filled with amazement as they each heard the believers speaking in their own native language. Others thought it was so ludicrous that they must have had too much wine.

The very things God calls us to in this broken, drying world seem laughable- peace, joy, grace, hospitality, fellowship, hope, prayer, faith. It's in those places, where God moves and shapes and shines.

Our very response is casting off every preconceived notion, every misunderstanding of ourselves and of God, every limitation our eyes can see, and simply throwing our arms to heaven and our heads back in deep, genuine, holy laughter at the working of God.

In Genesis, Sarah, who way past her child-bearing days, laughs when God tells her that she will have one day give birth to a son. Of course though, she bears a son exactly when God said she would and she names him Issac meaning he laughs. She says, "God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me."

What laughable things God surely does.







Comments

  1. This post instantly brought me back. I remember your first day like it was yesterday, and I remember the tears and the conversations centered around your uncertainty in that job that you are so beautifully equipped for. I remember your first little rental house together and scraping wallpaper off the one in need of love..oh my, how this made me miss you guys. You guys are so dear to us! 5 years, so much has happened, what a crazy ride!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

On choosing to be fearless and strong

Summer books!

"You make my dreams come true"