His Glory My Joy, a blog of Author Luana Ehrlich

During our college days, my husband and I befriended Benjamin, a student from Lagos, Nigeria, who traveled halfway around the world to attend a Baptist college in East Texas after becoming a believer through the witness of some Baptist missionaries.

Benjamin, who was the son of a tribal witch doctor, was at least fifteen years older than we were, and he seemed much wiser. His wisdom came from years of lived experiences, and he wasn’t shy about sharing those stories with us, something we encouraged him to do whenever we invited him to have a meal with us.

Decades later, many of his stories still have an impact on my life, primarily because the culture he grew up in was so different from my own, so consequently, his perspective caused me to look at the world and my faith through a different lens.

One of my favorite stories was the one he told us about the time he and his best friend were on their way to another village and were attempting to cross a flooded river. He described the difficulty he had in making it across, and then he told us how anxious he felt when he saw his friend fighting the current, eventually going under, but then emerging a little later and grabbing a tree branch along the riverbank.

Benjamin began laughing as he got to this part of the story, so we assumed it had a happy ending, but then he said, “But as God would have it, the branch broke off, and my friend drowned.”   

When we questioned him about why he laughed even though he must have felt sad at the loss of his friend, he said, “In my culture, when something is so sad that you can’t cry about it, then we choose to laugh. Choosing to laugh will eventually overcome your sadness.”

I’ve often remembered Benjamin’s advice during difficult periods in my life, and each time I’ve followed his advice and chosen laughter to get me through the rough patch, I’ve always found it made the situation better.

I was reminded of this as I was reading some verses from the Bible this week about joy, and I came across some similar advice from the writer of Proverbs.

Proverbs 17:22 says, “A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.”

Are you going through a hard time?
Choose to chuckle.
I believe you’ll find it’s good medicine.