God has a sense of humor!

note: i originally posted this column a few weeks ago, but learned after 24 hours that christy wanted to surprise our british friends with the good news face-to-face. now i am free to share it with the world again.

my colleague and friend, rev. patsy brundige, has a picture she treasures: Jesus laughing hysterically. she likes to say Jesus had a sense of humor. it's hard to see that in the gospels themselves, because Jesus was constantly under threat from earthly powers, frustrated by the disciples' lack of faith, and concerned for the salvation of humanity. it's hard to express laughter when faced with constant battles for survival.

then again, Jesus must have had a sense of humor. after all, he called folks like peter, james, and john to be disciples! Jesus called peter "satan" after one of his dumb comments, and james and john sent their mom to plead to Jesus to give them the seats of power. Jesus had to have a sense of humor to be able to deal with the pressures of his life-- he was also grounded in prayer.

God has revealed his sense of humor to us recently: we learned we were moving to prosper january 2, and on january 23 we learned we are having another baby! this was an unplanned surprise, but like my grandfather said to mom after hearing the news, "frank is the most educated member of the family. this kind of thing should not surprise him." christy's due date is september 13. she's had a pretty rough time with sickness-- worse than the other pregnancies. but we're very excited (although christy said i didn't sound too excited when i announced yesterday at church). WOO HOO!!! WE'RE HAVING ANOTHER KID!!! better??

thanks to everyone who has shared in our joy. when we moved to denison james was 1. when we moved to duncanville christy was pregnant with miles. when we moved to prosper christy was pregnant with guido. does God have a sense of humor, or what?