Laughs

Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she laughs at the time to come (Proverbs 31:25).

Laughs? I’m not laughing. Not when I think of all the burdens of life. Not when I see how the world is going and the insecurity I find in my own heart.

Laughs? I’m not laughing. Not when the future looks bleak and a lot more like a cliff than a fertile field. Not when my kids have questions I can’t answer and my friends are in the middle of trials I can’t imagine.

Laughs? I’m not laughing, Lord. I’m withering. What are you saying?

She is clothed with strength and dignity. And smiling. She exudes calm joy. She’s wrapped in these things. Held close and firm in strength. Whose? Not hers.

Yours.

Our trials and questions and fears often loom huge and terrible. Some will come. Most will not. How can I laugh?

When I am held by You. Clothed in Your strength and confidence. I didn’t manufacture it. I wasn’t building strength when I woke from a nightmare and struggled to go back to sleep. But You were.

I wake and softly pad to my chair. We moved it here with everything else in that giant truck. I find my Bibles and journals - finally. Like old friends, I hold them close. I look out the window to a new sky. A new set of trees (maple and mulberry here). My old haunts are gone. The quiet places I met you.

And I grieve as I sip my coffee and whisper, “You’re here”. Even though I don’t believe it - yet. The chill of the nightmare is too close. The fears of the day are too soon.

But…You’re here.

Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing (John 15:4–5).

Who? Him.

I’ve heard it called “practicing the presence” of God. He’s always here with me. In every moment, every fear, every burden. He’s there but I am not aware.

Today I am. I’m looking for Him.

And He’s laughing. At the future. At all that rattles threats at me. Satan will try His best. He’ll take aim, He’ll try to bring me - all of us - down. With troubles bigger than we could imagine. And our own flesh sneaks out and hurts us. The world has drawn lines against us too. Not the people - the system.

And God laughs. Why?

He knows their end. He knows my end! He knows and He’s with me. His purposes will stand. Can I live in that knowing? Just today?

The weeping will come, the fears and nights of loneliness and homesickness. Withering. They will loom large and temporarily rob me of strength. I’ll look at them and step away from Him, setting my table with scarcity. Cut off from Him I wither immediately. Do you? (We can’t be permanently cut off, no. Romans 8 will lay that to rest, but in practice, yes, we can choose to abide… or not to.)

I want to abide in Him. Abide in His laughter. Because there is life here.

Trials fierce will come and they WILL go. He won’t. He’s always there, holding, keeping, wrapping, clothing me in His strength.

How? Weakness.

I know my weakness so I bring it. I come and ask and drink and rest. Because He’s my Father. He’s my friend. He’s my vine. And He will keep me - hemming me in behind and before.

I can’t do this on my own. And neither can you. We don’t have to. He will fight for us, His bride. Come and abide. Weakness abides. Weakness comes.

Do you have weakness? I do. He can clothe the weary, weak, and trembling in strength and dignity today.

And tomorrow. And again the next day. One day at a time we can come for manna. Will you?

It’s hard to live one day a time. But it’s also not - it’s childlike and it’s called abiding. It’s soft and open and abundant and beautiful one day at a time. A haven for the weary soul. Knowing He’s good and He loves me. A table set with abundance from a storehouse of grace.

And just today, full of Him, I think, I am -

Laughing.