“He will yet fill your mouth with laughter and your lips with shouts of joy.”—Job 8:21
I love this picture of my grandson’s face. I like to think he’s slowly realizing he is about to be dethroned by a little sister. I did not like being dethroned as master of my universe when my children came along. As with Job, my friends had a hard time convincing me I would once again laugh and shout for joy. Despite thinking because I was the oldest of five kids I was prepared for motherhood, it felt as though I’d been hurled unprepared into chaos. The endless infant-toddler-preschooler days jostled convulsively at best from one blurry-eyed nightmare to the next. And those are the very days I distinctly recall hearing “enjoy these years honey, they fly by so quickly”…even from strangers in the grocery store!
Who could possibly prepare you for the 2 am feedings that you’re still wrestling with until the 5 am feeding? Or the first bounce in the bouncy chair…right off the kitchen counter and onto the forehead? Or how to get “those stains” and “those smells” off and out of the walls, the clothes…and your hair? Or the last night before your first baby becomes your oldest child? Or surrendering your life to a tiny person who can’t even utter your name…or the bigger surprise that you’d surrender your life for hers?
You cannot get through motherhood without having at least a few months like these that last, as our son likes to shout, “to infinity…and BEYOND!” There were plenty of days when it was all I could do to remember my name, much less recount what, if anything, I accomplished on my “to do” list. That assumes I am able to find the list on something less than 14 scraps of paper throughout every room in the house, the garage and both cars.
How then, do you get through it? Ecclesiastes 3:1,4 comes to mind, “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven…a time to weep and a time to laugh”. You might be interested to know that the Hebrew word used here for laugh, sahaq, is the same word used elsewhere to mean “fight hand to hand”. Does it conjure for you the same memories I have of the arched-back-seat-belt-wars with your toddler? Are you now laughing about it? Try to keep in mind each battle endures for a season, and like every season, this too shall pass.
Not even close to laughing? Can’t pick yourself up out of the puddle you keep finding yourself in? Then remember Jesus’ comforting words in Luke 6:21, “Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.” If neither the encouragement from Job’s friends nor the teachings of the wise man from Ecclesiastes ring true, then hear Jesus’ message to you right now…you will laugh again! It may seem like an eternity now, but truly your weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning (Psalm 30:5) before you realize it.
I was reminded of how quickly the years pass one day as I watched our seven- and five-year old children collecting colorful fall leaves, and later skipping hand in hand in the rain, puddle-stomping and observing the occasional displaced earthworm along the sidewalk. Their laughter and innocence tugged gently on my heart as I thought how similarly my Heavenly Father must react to my own laughter and the purity He sees in me through the gift of His Son, Jesus Christ. And I am comforted. And I laugh at the sight of Michael wedged between our neighbor’s split-rail fence like a caught rabbit after trying to reach some leaves and his sister laughing hysterically as she attempts to free him.
“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.”—2 Corinthians 1:3,4
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