I am no longer one who frequently smiles and laughs. Over the past two years, the foundation of all I believe has been rocked to its core. Questions, doubts, uncertainty and confusion have swallowed my existence. It's paralyzed me in a way I never could have imagined. I've struggled with people who claim to know God, but live like they've never met Him; people who claim to know God and believe that doing anything other than evangelizing will send you to hell; and people who completely ignore God, yet, are some the most kind, loving and generous humans I know. It's been a very difficult road trying to find the absolute truth when everyone is certain that their interpretation is the right one.
All of this has thrown me into a darkness I've never experienced before. It's been months since I've had substantial religious influence. In a last ditch effort to salvage some part of my spirituality, I unplugged from most things related to Christianity. But the intense gloom has remained. I'm a walking cloud of negative energy. Some of the people I've encountered the past year would actually applaud my exemption from such frivolous behavior like laughter and smiling. I recall one woman saying that she admired a man because the older he gets, the more serious he becomes because he sees how fleeting all of this is. I was nauseous. But when you're surrounded by people who believe that way, you begin to question every smirk, every grin or lighthearted pleasure. I wondered if sitting and coloring with my babies was a horrible waste of time since I could be doing something more profound, like praying or reading my Bible. But the more I was exposed to that type of Christianity, the less I wanted anything to do with my Bible or my God.
The questions have been relentless, the confusion immense. But I'm beginning to feel like He's finally pulling me from this tangled web of twisted theology and doctrine. "Come back to the basics, come back to me and I'll rebuild your house with an all true, absolute foundation." Not sure how long it'll take for me to feel life-like again, but I was blessed with this little tidbit about laughter, from JR Miller:
"Laughter has its place in every wholesome, healthy, holy life. The man who never smiles--is morbid! He has lost the joy chords out of his life...He has accustomed himself so long to sadness--that the muscles of his face have become set in hard, fixed lines--and cannot relax themselves. His thoughts of life are gloomy--and the gloom has entered his soul and darkened his eyes! Where there is no laughter--all evil nests. Demons do not laugh! The man who never laughs must not blame his fellows if they think there is something wrong with his life, something dark within."
Just reading that makes me smile. And it feels good. It feels really, really good.
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Thanks for sharing. I've been walking in a lot of that for awhile. It's like Lewis setup in the Screwtape Letters: if we won't turn to evil, they'll use our own good against us. It's so easy for us to become "pharisees"... start to suspect other's joy, our own joy. Fantastic article by Thabiti Anyabwile that I think may be of some help: http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/thabitianyabwile/2009/12/22/calvinist-confessions-2/
It helped me out a lot (the whole series - 5 total - is great!).
Coloring with your kids is extremely important. The Bible hones us in to understanding God as best we can, but without life experiences a lot of the Bible would not dig deep inside of us. There is so much happening as you color with your kids... here's a few: patience - you might want to do something else, encouragement - you lift up your child as they color, relationship - you have the chance to talk with your kids, presence - your kids feel your nearness.
God created the family, not so we would sit in corners and read the Bible all day, but to experience even more of his gifts. In the end we understand God better and love him more, as we experience the world around us - good or bad.
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