Laugh Lines

Our 7 year old grandson; we call him 'Party in a Body'

I am not an old lady. Yet. In twenty years I will be.

That thought is sobering.

My father was thirty when I was born. This past month he turned ninety-three, and our family all celebrates the fact that he's still alive. After falling in the shower a month or so ago, he uses a walker every morning to 'loosen things up'. But he can still drive and garden and balance his checkbook to the penny. He can beat the shorts off all the old ladies in his building who are brave enough to play dominoes with him twice a week. He's the oldest member at the golf course, where he plays three times a week.

If I can do half of what he does now, thirty years from now, likely my family will feel thankful too. But right now, thirty years this side of him, there's a lot of living to be done, even if it means doing stretches before I get out of bed every morning. It means being intentional with my years, and months, and weeks, and days, and hours. It means choosing well, instead of just being carried along every day by the stuff of life. Saying no to things. And people who are not my people, and sometimes even them. Saying no to being busy all the time, which in today's society is a bit like agreeing to being invisible or insignificant.

I'm okay with being a little less significant, especially if it means living a life that is made up of what really matters. I'm okay with saying no to filling my time with fluff.

Lately my intentional approach to life has been fleshed out in noticing how often all my grandkids laugh.  The two littles ones tend to laugh over the simple stuff, like the dog writhing upside down on the living room floor,  or Max the cat following the laser through the house, or as they're chasing chickens across the yard, watching them scatter every which way. None of our grandkids is very intentional in their approach to life, but interestingly enough, none of them needs to be reminded to laugh every single day either; they are still at the age they notice what they are surrounded by, and rather than worry about checking off a to do list, they jump into life. They join in. And oh the belly laughs they can produce. It's some kind of wonderful that fills a room, bouncing off the walls until we're all infected.

Perhaps I need to loosen up a bit? Live on purpose, but maybe not every blessed second of the day?

To cut myself some slack, I wonder if maybe little kids laugh because they haven't yet buried anyone they love. Or been turned down for a job. Or had a marriage teeter and totter with life's challenges. Or had more month than money. Maybe their lease on life is why Jesus said 'let them come unto me.' It's notable to me that He didn't say the kingdom of heaven was made up of those striving and straining and trying to get ahead, but rather those with a more childlike approach to living.

How old are we when we start spending the biggest part of our days on the stuff of life that causes wrinkles instead of laugh lines? There's so much joy to be seen all around us, so many moments in any given day. We just have to have the eyes that see them.

Lord, I don't know if I have thirty years, or twenty or ten. Or one. I do know I have today. Help me see what's all around me. Help me take it in, soak it up. Help that joy reach my heart, then my face. Help me break out in good ole belly laughs more often than I do now. Even if it means a few more laugh lines, because they're worth it.

Then let me spread it all around me.