Life can be hard, but don’t forget to laugh
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Caregiving chips away at those cultural indulgences. Bills still come, and bodies still break. Responsibilities don’t pause so that you can craft the perfect complaint. You either learn to carry it, or it crushes you.
If you’re going to endure this, you also learn to laugh. Not because things are easy, but because this isn’t the end.
Scripture tells us there is a time to weep and a time to laugh.
We weep in hospital rooms. We weep in quiet moments when the weight of it all settles in. We weep while watching helplessly as someone we love struggles.
But we also laugh because we are refusing to let the pain define us.
And for the Christian, that refusal is not rooted in being naturally strong or optimistic, but in what we believe to be true. That truth requires something of us, especially in our darkest moments.
If what we believe is true, then suffering is not meaningless or random, and it is not final.
God is not absent from it. If He is Lord at all, then He is Lord of all. The promise of the gospel is not that we learn to cope better, but that Christ redeems completely.
Right now, my wife uses prosthetic legs. Right now, we deal with bills, setbacks, and the daily logistics of a body that has endured more than most people can imagine. But a day is coming when all that will change. No prosthetics, pain, or co-pays. No fragile bodies that wear out under the strain of this world.
Until then, we live here. So yes, we weep. But we also laugh — sometimes right after accidentally trying to pay $5,300 we don’t have. For now, we still crack a smile, even with tears on our cheeks.
“Ten more payments … and you can walk anywhere you want, baby!”
I reach for her hand and help her stand. She chuckles. Not because it’s easy, but because it’s not the end.
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