My wife got a night out earlier this week, thanks to a family friend who decided we—and 20 more of her friends—needed to kick back and be entertained.
We went to Nashville’s famous Ryman Theater to see comedian Jeanne Robertson, Miss North Carolina of 1962 and one of America’s most beloved speakers. For more than two hours, Jeanne—74 years old as she won’t hesitate to tell you—regaled us with story after story, reminding us to “find the humor in every situation.”
Jeanne certainly can find humor anywhere, even in the trial of breaking her femur (that’s a bone in your leg, I found out), when she was in rehab for months. She now performs her shows mostly from a rocking chair, because too much time standing is just . . . too much.
Jeanne Robertson knows her mission well, which is to entertain and make people laugh, to forget about their problems—if only for a while. She helps her audiences see that if we can find the humor in anything, we’re going to be okay in this world. It’s a lesson I need to keep in mind.
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Just before intermission, Jeanne told us she would take three questions from the audience after the break. But, she said, “I don’t take questions on politics or religion. None of that. And no ‘pro-choice’ or ‘pro-life’ stuff. I don’t do that, either.”
I get it. We went to Jeanne’s show to laugh. It’s not her job to convince me on the life issue, one way or the other. Her mission was to entertain and that’s what she did. If some of today’s celebrities would take a lesson from her instead of turning their concerts into tirades against conservatives or love-fests with Planned Parenthood, we would all be better off.
My question to all of us in the pregnancy help community is this: While it’s good to find humor in any situation, is there something greater we need to find in every situation we face at our centers and clinics?
That something greater, it seems, is to find God’s hand in every situation. Sometimes we need to look extremely carefully to find His hand, but it’s there if we look hard enough.
The young woman who seems to be making poor decision after poor decision? She’s like the Samaritan woman at the well, who was finding love in all the wrong places—that is, until she met Jesus Christ when she went out to get some water.
Or how about the angry young father who won’t speak with us? Is he just another unreachable soul? Or is he another Saul of Tarsus who needs a flash of light on the road to Damascus?
Tweet This: God's hand is in every situation. It's on us to watch Him work. @KirkWalden #prolife
Reading the story of the California Board of Nursing's sudden flip-flop on offering CEU’s to nurses learning about abortion-pill reversal (Is this a reversal on reversal? In all the frustration, there’s a joke in there somewhere), I wondered, “Where does God fit into all of this?”
My answer? “I don’t know.” But I do know our response matters to God. Who knows whether our response might prompt someone on the Board of Nursing to see those who are pro-life in a new light?
Certainly, this is a difficult situation. But it is also an opportunity to shine the light of who we are in a fresh way. What this looks like is hard to say. But if we seek to see this situation from God’s perspective, we are on the right track.
Jeanne Robertson helped me to look for humor in every situation, and for that I’m thankful.
And yet, there is something even better one can find in every situation. Whether it is the person who walks in the door of one of our offices or the California Board of Nursing, God is there somewhere. It’s up to me to find His hand.
