Going Down Smiling

"Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God.  I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. (Isa 41:10)

The crotchety Thomas Carlyle said of his contemporary, the eloquent Alfred Lord Tennyson: "He carried around a little bit of chaos, and he was always turning it into a cosmos."  Jesus is always doing that too.  In the words of the black spiritual, "He will fix it for you, for He knows Just what to do."

And often He saves us not from the pain, but through the pain.  A guide and an inexperienced climber had to stay all night in the Pyrenees Mountains; they couldn't make it back.  Toward dawn, a tempestuous wind began twisting trees and rolling rocks down the mountainsides.  The climber was terrified.  The guide reassured him:  "This is the way the dawn comes in the Pyrenees Mountains."  And sometimes our dawns come through storm and tempest.

Someone has said that "spikenard oil, when jostled, lets the perfume out."  The jostling of approaching death serves only to let the fragrance out.  A very dear friend said to me one day,  "I've noticed that when you go down, you go down smiling."  I have laid this compliment at the feet of Another - I learned it from Him.  He is the one who said to His followers:  "My peace I give unto you" (John 14:27 KJV) - as He was headed for a cross.

Sometimes the ability to go down smiling derails the going down.  A missionary in China was taken out to be beheaded.  When she got to the place of execution, she burst out laughing   Her captors asked her why - it was no laughing matter!  She replied, "I was just thinking how funny it would be to see my own head rolling down the hill as I'm on my way to Glory.  That makes me laugh with joy."  "Well," said the bandits, "if its going to make her happier, why should we please her that way?"  And they let her go!
'O Christ, there is no loss in You.  Everything is sheer gain.  Whatever happens turns out to be contribution through You.  I thank You. Amen.'

Taken from The Way; E. Stanley Jones
Pictured above:  An older picture of Anna's siblings "trying" to give her a hair cut. I can't think of any other person who has taught me more about laughter...than Anna.