In the lowest times of my life, God has given me two gifts that have helped to preserve my spirit (aside from people).

They are moot points in some persons' lives, but they are the spice of my life. These two things are humor and the great outdoors.

And by humor, I mean just plain silliness, crazy laughter.

I've always resorted to humor at hard moments.. probably too much in fact. I can tend to laugh at inappropriate times.

Almost daily when working math problems with my mom (back in the homeschooling years), frustration and exhaustion would rise to a breaking point. And I would laugh. Laugh, rolling on the floor in silliness and tears, like a dang fool, shaking and gasping for breath. And mom would join me. We'd laugh until we couldn't breathe, stare at each other shaking our heads, then return to the math.

As I sat sweating on the church pew, nervous to give my senior speech, I asked my friend Margaret to tell me a joke. Of course, it was something or another about a cow farting. My heart rose like a hot air balloon, and I spoke without any grave incidents.

In the long years of middle school, school days filled me with stress and insecurity. Walking into school was like walking into shackles. When I hopped in the old minivan at the end of the day, I couldn't wait to be silly, couldn't wait to say some fool thing. Couldn't wait to forget myself completely in craziness around people who were happy to be crazy with me.

This takes us to the common thread: forgetting self. Life can become so self-focused, so pressured, such a rat race against others. But what are we even racing for, really? A life lived for self is a life of misery. We can never satisfy ourselves.

The great outdoors. Creation. This is the place I have always fled, in tears or for some peace.

During my childhood, when conflict arose, when my heart sobbed heavy, or with fists curled in stress, I would run to the woods behind our house, to the fort. I'd take 'my' machete and stride chopping through the underbrush, or maybe just lie in the field.

Home was my safe place during the first semester of college, when I was gripped by fear and sadness. Not just because family was there. But because home was the place of the wide open pasture under moonlight, of the stretching woods and cornfields, the place from which to watch storm clouds blow in or wonder at a sunrise.

When I was dissatisfied with my life as a teenager, I would dream of those Colorado mountains I once skied, dream of the twisting pines and blue peaks, and it would still my soul for a time.

Both meant escape from self into joyful forgetfulness and wonder. Humor and nature have been such blessings to many of us.

But what of the gift-giver? The source? I have learned that I cannot depend on these gifts alone. They are a balm but not a cure for my hurts. I didn't find real peace until I really surrendered to God.

Jesus Christ alone satisfies. He is the way to fullness of life, to enjoyment of humor and creation without desperate dependence on them.

And still, there are things to learn from my two special gifts, things to learn about God!

He is God of laughter, of the wild and surprising, the weird and the silly. He's the God who invented the miraculous bizarreness of human creativity. The God of the ridiculous. He allowed for memes, allowed for comedians, allowed for potty humor, who made people to poot, and to sing silly songs. God of the ostrich, spreading wings wide in full run, comical. Creator of the lion fish, of bird courtships, of Tim Hawkins, of the minds behind Napoleon Dynamite.

As well, He is the God of beauty, of the wonderful and the majestic, of constellations splattering the midnight sky and misty jungles and clear blue lagoons lapping sand. All creation is His work of art, here for our enjoyment, made out of love for us!

The Lord is anything but dull, anything but musty.

What is musty and dull is we ourselves, just sinners, especially if we take ourselves too seriously.

Dull is the frantic business of life in pursuit of money, in pursuit of fame, when these things only fade.

What will this self-image we built have come to when our bodies lie decaying under six feet of soil?

Will we enjoy our earthly possessions in the lonely void of hell?

Will we grasp this life with greedy hands, claiming it all with a shout, MINE! as is so easy to do? Or will we give all the gifts away?

We are but dust. We are but dead. Until God breathes His redeeming life into us. Humor, wonder in nature, they are but a spark in the dark, leading the way to their Creator.