Stephanie Rische

Blogger and Writer: Capturing Stories of God's Grace

A Recipe for Laughing More

The theme I selected for this year (or perhaps the theme that chose me) was “Laugh More.” When I landed on the theme, I had no idea how timely it would be, because as it turns out, I now have a live-in tutor in laughter.

My tutor is just over a year old, and although he only learned how to laugh a few months ago, he is already something of an expert. Graham doesn’t know to be cynical. He hasn’t learned sarcasm. He doesn’t require a lot of nuance in his humor. He just laughs, straight from his belly.

Through the eyes of toddler, life is full of laughter: the springy sound of a doorstop, the unpredictable bounce of a balloon, the sandpapery tongue of a dog, a well-placed tickle.

There’s something profound about how straightforward his humor is: he sees something that strikes him as funny, and he laughs.

I still have a lot to learn when it comes to laughing, but more than halfway through the year, here are a few things I’ve learned so far:

1. Be present in the moment.

There is nothing like regret over the past or worry about the future to squeeze the laughter right out of a person. When you’re one, you aren’t worried about your to-do list and you’re not stewing over something you said yesterday. That frees you up to embrace the funny moments in the right-now.

I am trying to take lessons from Graham, as well as from the wise woman in Proverbs, and let go of worry so there’s more space in my heart for laughter.

She is clothed with strength and dignity, and she laughs without fear of the future.
Proverbs 31:25

2. Don’t take yourself too seriously.

In the past several months, I’ve discovered that there is one source of humor that is ever-present: myself. I can’t tell you how many times this year I made it halfway through my day at work before realizing I had spit-up on my shirt. There was the time I got halfway to dinner with friends before realizing I was almost at work instead. And then there was the day I congratulated myself on getting dinner in the Crockpot by 8 a.m., only to realize when I got home that I hadn’t turned it on.

In the past, these might have been prime opportunities for me to feel frustrated or annoyed. But I’m trying to change my default setting to laughter. If I can embrace the humor inherent in being a flawed and foible-prone human being, I will have an ever-regenerating, built-in source of laughter.

We can best take ourselves seriously if we are free to laugh at ourselves, and to enjoy the laughter of God and his angels.
Madeleine L’Engle

3. Create space for laughter.

It seems to me that there is a direct correlation between the margin in my life and my ability to laugh. Laughter flourishes best in an environment where it has some elbow room—it doesn’t want to be shoehorned into a few orchestrated moments here are there. So I’m actively trying to carve out some margin to let laughter grow.

4. Be generous with your laughter.

As I’ve watched Graham explore the world and discover what tickles his funny bone, I’ve marveled at how funny ordinary things can be. He has taught me this important lesson: Don’t be stingy with your laughs.

And so we’ve been recording the things that have cracked us up this year—not just the big laughs but the little giggles too. We’ve been writing them down and putting them in a laugh jar—partly so we are more aware of them, and partly so we can pull them out again at the end of the year and laugh about them all over again.

I know not all that may be coming,
but be what it will,
I’ll go to it laughing.
Herman Melville

5. Gain perspective

Perhaps the best way to grow our laugh muscles is to get perspective on who we are and who God is. When we rest in the truth that God is holding us (and that he has a sense of humor himself), we are able to laugh alongside him.

It is the heart that is not yet sure of its God that is afraid to laugh in His presence.
George MacDonald

***

I’d love to hear from you. What helps you to be more open to laughter? What has made you laugh recently?

Friday Favorites for February

Happy Friday, everyone! Here are some of my recent favorites, from unusual vending machines to fictional hot chocolate recipes to the funniest things I’ve seen this week.

For anyone who has found themselves with time to kill in an airport . . .

Believe it or not, there are vending machines that spit out short stories for those times when you’re waiting around and in need of some mental stimulation. They originated in France, but apparently there are now some in the US too. I want to find one! Vending Machines Dispense Short Stories Instead of Snacks

For anyone who needs cheering up in this winter weather . . .

These book character inspired hot chocolate recipes will warm you up inside and out. I especially enjoyed the Mr. Darcy recipe and the one about Katniss Everdeen. Hot Chocolate Recipes Based on Fictional Characters

For anyone who wonders if they’re doing this parenting thing right . . .

I’m only a few months into this mommy gig, but that’s long enough for me to second-guess myself approximately eleven times within the hour. These tongue-in-cheek charts cracked me up and reminded me that I’m not alone. Parenting Explained in 5 Simple Graphs

For anyone who needs a laugh . . .

My goal for this year is to laugh more (and to give the people in my life more opportunities to laugh), so I was delighted to find this satirical post: The Proverbs 32 Man.

Laugh More!

For the past 14 years, I have chosen a word as my theme for the year. (Trust me, this is much better than a list of resolutions. For starters, there’s a much greater chance I’ll actually remember my goal for the year come March. And for a recovering perfectionist like me, this leaves a lot more room for grace. You can’t really fail a word, right?)

At any rate, my word is typically something with some meat to it—something I can study and read about and really dig into in the coming year. As 2017 came to a close, my husband cracked a joke and I quipped, “Maybe my goal for next year should be to laugh more.” Daniel looked at me, eyebrows raised, and it struck me that maybe this wasn’t just a joke.

What if my theme for the year really was to laugh more? At first glance, it sounded too easy, like I would be getting away with something. But as I thought about it more, it occurred to me that this isn’t as easy as it sounds. If I wanted to embrace a year of more laughter, it wasn’t going to happen automatically. I would have to be intentional about it.

I don’t know about you, but I find that so many reactions bubble to the surface before laughter. When something comes my way during any given typical day, I might worry, plan, stew, get a snack, or talk it over with a friend. But how often do I laugh?

Not long ago I went back to work after maternity leave, and I have found that this life stage leaves me with a lot of balls to juggle and plenty of opportunities to drop them. Only maybe balls isn’t the right metaphor, because the stakes feel a lot higher than that. Juggling torches, perhaps? At any rate, I feel like I have become pretty efficient and productive in this season of life—stashing meals in the freezer, working like a madwoman during naptime, squeezing the most out of every spare moment.

This is good . . . to some degree. But there’s a dark side to donning my super-efficiency cape, and that’s that I can become a version of myself that I don’t really like. I can check off all the things from my list but become a not-very-fun person in the process. Here’s the thing: I have been given so many beautiful, gracious gifts, and I don’t want to be so busy and productive that I don’t have time to enjoy them.

I want to be interruptible.
I want to have margin to waste time with the people I love.
I want have space to breathe, to savor, to be.
I want to laugh more.

For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven. . . . A time to cry and a time to laugh.
Ecclesiastes 3:1, 4

Are you in a season of laughter right now, or are you in a season of tears? And I wonder . . . is it possible for those seasons to coexist? What if we could laugh in the midst of a crying season, and cry in the midst of a laughing season?

In The Return of the King, the hobbit Sam has this lovely exchange with Gandalf, and it brings a lump to my throat every time:

“Is everything sad going to come untrue? What’s happened to the world?”

“A great Shadow has departed,” said Gandalf, and then he laughed and the sound was like music, or like water in a parched land; and as he listened the thought came to Sam that he had not heard laughter, the pure sound of merriment, for days upon days without count.

If you haven’t heard the sound of pure merriment for days upon days without count, I would love for you to join me in this quest toward more laughter—toward holy laughter.

***

I can tell you already, I’m not going to be able to do this alone, so I would love your help. What has made you laugh recently? Are there books that make you laugh? Certain movies or shows that crack you up? Favorite jokes? If so, please share them!

Laughing with God

When I was pregnant, I read all the books. My first errand after I found out the news was to go to library so I could stock up on how-tos and stories and firsthand accounts. And since Graham made his appearance two weeks late, I filled the bonus time with—you guessed it—more books. If there’s a literary equivalent to morning sickness, I had it.

After all that preemptive reading, I thought I knew the range of scenarios to expect when my baby made his big debut. Sure, we’d be surprised by the gender, and we didn’t know the status of our baby’s health. But I thought I had a pretty good idea of what might happen in the delivery room.

What no one prepared me for was my own reaction. To my great astonishment, when I first laid eyes on my son, I laughed.

***

I will spare you the gory details of my birth story, but once we arrived at the hospital, things moved along more quickly than anyone anticipated.

“Get comfortable,” our nurse told us the afternoon we were to be induced. “Chances are, nothing will start happening until tomorrow morning, so plan to eat dinner get a good night’s sleep.”

Daniel dutifully changed into his pajamas and tried to wind down, but “comfortable” didn’t seem to be on the agenda for the evening. Things started happening—and happening in rapid succession—and when Daniel pointed out that the medical staff had set up the table with all the instruments, we realized THIS WAS HAPPENING. (This was also the point he changed back into his real clothes.)

After a whirlwind of pain and puke and pushes and more bodily fluids than I can even comprehend, the doctor held up a squirming bundle, our own slimy trophy. But my glasses were off, and I couldn’t see a thing. Was our baby okay?

So I turned to Daniel, who had been holding my hand for the past several hours, never complaining while I squeezed the feeling right out of his fingers. I locked eyes with him, asking a million wordless questions.

“It’s a boy,” he whispered, his eyes brimming with tears and joy and love. So my first glimpse of Graham was not my own; it was through the eyes of his father. And in that instant, I knew. This tiny miracle, this beloved child of God—he was healthy and whole and as perfect as a baby could be. And as the tears dripped down my cheeks, I laughed.

***

God’s birth announcement to Abraham and Sarah is interlaced with laughter. When God tells Abraham he and Sarah will have a child in their old age, his response is to laugh:

Abraham fell facedown; he laughed and said to himself, “Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old?”
Genesis 17:17

His wife, Sarah, laughed too:

Sarah laughed to herself as she thought, “After I am worn out and my lord is old, will I now have this pleasure?”
Genesis 18:12

But did you ever notice that only Sarah is chastened for laughing?

The Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Will I really have a child, now that I am old?’ Is anything too hard for the Lord?”
Genesis 18:13

I’m not a Bible scholar, but I have a theory about why their responses are judged differently: Sarah laughed at God. Abraham laughed with God.

Sometimes God’s plans are nothing shy of ludicrous. We’d be crazy not to laugh (and I have to believe God is laughing too). So maybe it’s okay to laugh when God whispers his big, impossible promises to us. The question is, will we laugh with cynicism or hope? Bitterness or trust?

One of the things I love about Sarah’s story is that God fulfills his promise even though she laughed at him. Isn’t it a relief that his faithfulness isn’t conditional on our ability to believe it? He knows our humanity; he knows we sometimes laugh to protect our hearts from getting hurt. And he is faithful, even when we laugh at him.

***

In that hospital room, like Sarah, I laughed. I laughed because God’s plans are audacious. I laughed because his ways are so ridiculous and so brimming with joy that my body couldn’t help but let it out.

Notably, Sarah’s story didn’t end with her laughing at God. In fact, God offers her a turn of gracious irony:

Sarah said, “God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me.”
Genesis 21:6

She moved from laughing at God to laughing with him. And she named her son Laughter to prove it.

Sometimes God’s ways are so outlandish and farfetched that all we can do is laugh. The question is, when God invites us into something impossible, how will we laugh? Will we laugh with him or at him?

Whatever audacious thing you are believing God for today, I invite you to join Sarah and me, and laugh.

Laughing at Our Stories

girls morning

Confession: I’m a recovering serious person. I used to take things uber-seriously. (Sometimes I still do, but I’m getting serious about lightening up.) I took my failures seriously. I took God seriously. And most of all, I took myself seriously. And while it’s certainly important to give our best effort to our work, our relationships, and our faith, I think sometimes the best thing we can do is laugh.

I think God himself has a sense of humor . . . not a twisted, sardonic sense of humor, but a delightful, belly-laughing kind. And I’m convinced that while he cares about my problems, sometimes he pats me on the head and says, “Oh, child, try to lighten up a little. Someday this isn’t going to seem like The End of the World. I promise, one day you’ll be able to laugh about this.”

Laughter doesn’t always come easily, but it may be a discipline every bit as much as prayer and study. In fact, sometimes laughter is the most spiritual thing we can do. Laughter is one of the best ways to unburden our souls and ease the load of another.

Laughter is carbonated holiness.
Anne Lamott

Over the course of my eight flopped blind dates, I did my share of tear-shedding, especially when I felt rejected or when I wondered if God would ever answer my longing for someone to share life with. But I learned something else too: sometimes it was okay—healthy, even—to laugh. The best thing I could do for my soul in those moments of embarrassment and/or disappointment was to embrace my story, quirks and pitfalls and all, and laugh.

So now I’d love to hear from you. What’s YOUR date story that you can laugh about now, in retrospect? Here’s an added challenge: see if you can share your story in 20 words or less.

Here are a few examples to get you started. (Full stories included in my book!)

  • Got a theological grilling from the guy before he’d progress to date #2. Eschatology + Caesar wrap = indigestion.
  • Off-duty limo driver made me sit in the backseat. Had our first conversation through the rearview mirror.

Okay, your turn! I’ll give away a free copy of my book to someone who shares their story!

Bonus: If you’d like to share your stories in person (or hear other people’s stories), please join us for a Girls’ Morning Out at Prairie Path Books in Wheaton. There will be coffee, chocolate, stories, and laughs . . . plus free giveaways! Hope you can join us!

Carbonated Holiness

DesmondTutu

Last week I had the privilege of hearing Desmond Tutu speak. Having long admired him for his opposition to apartheid, his commitment to reconciliation, and his compassion for the oppressed, I was eager to hear what he had to say.

As he walked up to the podium, escorted by one of his daughters, he looked just every bit as dignified as I’d imagined the Archbishop of Cape Town would be. Dressed in a clerical robe, with professorial glasses perched on the tip of his nose, he exuded confidence and peace.

Just as I’d hoped, his words were full of wisdom, drawn from several decades of turmoil and hard-won victories in South Africa. But there was one thing I wasn’t prepared for. His laugh.

Oh, that laugh! (You can listen to it here.) The first time I heard it, I glanced around the stage to see if someone else had joined him up front. It was a high-pitched sound, full of utter glee—more of a giggle, really. Surely it couldn’t be coming from a man of such distinction—someone who had witnessed so much suffering during his lifetime. But as his talk went on, there was no denying it: that laugh was coming straight out of the mouth of Archbishop Tutu. And it was contagious: every time he let out his trademark giggle, the rest of us couldn’t help but laugh too.

As I sat there trying to commit the sound to memory, I was reminded of the quote by Anne Lamott: “Laughter is carbonated holiness.”

As a human race, we tend to take things pretty seriously. We take our jobs seriously. We take our relationships seriously. We take our faith seriously. We take the problems of the world seriously. We take ourselves seriously. And this is good . . . to a point.

But God never meant for us to trudge through life so soberly. As the book of Proverbs puts it, laughter is good medicine. Perhaps the best thing about the prescription of laughter is that it chips away at our pride; it reminds us that we are merely human.

Archbishop Tutu recounted a story of a woman who had approached him on the street while he was traveling. “Oh, I’m so happy to meet you!” she exclaimed, shaking his hand. “You’re Archbishop Mandela!”

He could have been indignant about her error. He could have enumerated his impressive credentials. Instead, he laughed. Recalling the moment, he couldn’t contain his delight. “It was as if she got two for the price of one!” And that giggle again.

I want to be more like Archbishop Tutu—treating important things with the gravity they deserve, but remembering that we’re also wired to laugh.

So this week, what will I choose?

  • Will I be humble enough to laugh at myself?
  • Will I experience the freedom of not taking myself too seriously?
  • Will I make sure pride doesn’t steal my opportunities to giggle?
  • Will I experience the healing that comes from medicinal laughter?

This week, may laughter bubble up inside all of us until we have no choice but to let it out, like so much carbonated holiness.

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Do you think laugher can be holy? Have you ever felt the healing effects of laughter?