A Time to Laugh

"A time to weep, and a time to laugh . . ." Ecclesiastes 3:4a

Well, dear readers, Tuesday afternoon was my time to weep. Perhaps not in as serious a context as this verse suggests, but I was still pretty upset. After setting up a short video clip, researching, writing my speech, putting it all together . . . it all fell apart. That's how it felt anyway. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I was the first one up to give my speech for my Fundamentals of Speech class. It was a persuasive speech on how people don't know self-defense, self-discipline, and self-respect and should therefore get involved in martial arts. As a black belt in Jujitsu, having trained for 13 years, I felt that it was something I could talk about that I knew pretty well.

Anyway, my wonderful teacher gave me a great introduction, and then I was up. I knew I was in trouble right from the beginning, because instead of rattling off my introduction that I had attempted to memorize, I kept looking down at my outline (where I had written most of my speech word for word). I would not recommend this, because as soon as I got to my first main point, I started reading something that made absolutely no sense out of context! It's rather embarrassing getting ahead of yourself. So I had to backtrack to try and save face. But that's not even the worst of it.

As soon as I got to the part where I was about to show the video clip my dad had spent a long time e-mailing to me (which I had put to music and everything), it didn't work. I clicked on it several times, and . . . nothing. Talking about a video clip is not the same thing as showing one, just in case you were wondering.

I was disappointed in myself, and to be honest, I felt so stupid. After class I called my mom, and that's when I let myself cry. And I was sullen for a couple of hours after that (just ask my friends!).

With all that said, I will now get to the point of this post. My sweet friend who lives in another dorm asked if she could come up and visit with me after dinner, and when she came to my room we started talking and I shared my story. Her visit brightened my spirits, and as we were talking the most beautiful sight appeared outside my window. Just take a look at some of the pictures my friend took, and you'll see what I mean. What a gift from God!

But here comes the reason why I chose the title for my post. As we were talking, I was checking different blogs when I read the post for the Seekerville blog entitled She Said WHAT? I started laughing so much, and I shared it with my friend and she got a good laugh, too! The author of the post shared an experience where she had said the wrong word and felt so embarrassed (you'll simply have to read the post for yourself to get why it is so funny).

Later on that evening, I talked with my dad on the phone, and I took a new look at what had happened in speech class. It was actually rather funny! That time when I got ahead of myself--let me give you the context. I had just told the class how they should get involved in martial arts and then I said, "If someone heard that the rate of car accidents had gone down, they would still take safety precautions like wearing there seat belts." Where on earth did that come from?! Well, I was supposed to say before that line that crime rate was going down, but we should still be smart and know how to defend ourselves because crime still happens.

And what about the video? Well, my introduction to the video was: "If you do martial arts, you can be your own hero, just . . . like . . . me!" And . . . nothing. So much for being my own hero! I couldn't even remember to put the video file on my flash drive!

If you've made it to this point in the post, thanks for taking the time to read my "novel"! I hope that this post is an encouragement to you, that maybe we can all learn to laugh at ourselves (it's hard--I know!). Or when times are hard and we just need to weep, remember that there will come a time to laugh.

I had been rather prideful about my speech topic, feeling glad that I could surprise the class with something they would never expect about little old me. But I'm not perfect (not even close!), and I think it was good to have this experience where I could learn to laugh at myself, even if it was painful at first. May we all take the time to enjoy a good laugh--it truly is some of the best medicine!