By 
I am a smileology student and have been for most of my life. If you can’t smile at something, it’s not worth thinking about.
Of course, certain things in life are serious, but not so many. Too many people take everything seriously and ruin their life. These are the type of people that I like to be with because they take things very seriously and because of that, the jokes about them.
When I see someone who looks sad, I have an urge to try something that makes them laugh. It is that smile on our face that defines who we are.
There are times when I have to be careful with my smile. I find a lot to laugh about and to be honest the kind lady of the parsonage has given me quite a bit to laugh about. I don’t know if she has taught me to laugh or if I have taught her to laugh. The result is the only thing that matters. We chuckled and that makes a good life.
We must be careful when watching shows that deal with politicians because of the danger of dying of laughter. Every politician has a role model like Charlie Chaplin.
When I said this to my wife, she vehemently disagreed.
“Oh no,” he said energetically, “his role model is the Three Stooges.”
When he is right, he is right, and with this, he is absolutely right.
We enjoyed a long therapeutic session of laughter.
Then a certain chapter in our life opened. We were having dinner together and my wife said, “Do you know that my friend couldn’t access Facebook?”
I chuckled because I thought it was some kind of joke.
“No,” I laughed, “what kind of nonsense did he do to deserve that?”
I replied, “Doesn’t she know that her world doesn’t revolve around Facebook? Tell her to go find a life.”
Over the next week, I heard from several of my friends who had access to Facebook blocked. These friends were good people and I couldn’t understand why in the world Facebook blocked them. They probably did something terrible. Why else would Facebook block them?
It seems like every week I hear from someone who is being blocked from Facebook, and I could never understand the reasons for that. I just laughed and thought that maybe they did something that wasn’t right.
After all, Facebook is always right. (Or do they lean to the left?) I could never figure that out.
Every time I hear that someone is blocked, I would just smile and laugh and forget about it.
I learned a lesson, don’t laugh at something when you don’t know the whole story.
One day last week, I got up, had my coffee, and went to my chair to read a bit, and then grabbed my iPad to check out my Facebook page.
I guess this is automatic and I don’t think about it too much.
While I was opening my Facebook page, a message appeared saying that I had been blocked from Facebook. Obviously, according to them, and they are never wrong, there have been things posted on my Facebook that do not correlate with their standards.
Someone hacked into my account and started posting things I had no idea about.
When I told my wife about my lockout on Facebook, she laughed.
“What are you laughing about?”
“Well,” he laughed, “you must have done something terrible to get Facebook to block you.”
Just to pause right here; I wasn’t laughing!
Then he reminded me of all the friends of ours who didn’t have access to Facebook and how much we laughed and giggled.
“Yes,” I said sadly, “but that has nothing to do with me. I’m blocked!”
He looked at me with one of those looks and kept looking at me. I was getting a little nervous from his look. Then he finally said, “Your world doesn’t revolve around Facebook. Go find a life.”
Right now, I wasn’t laughing but was starting to do the opposite of laughing. I can’t tell you what that is right now.
The rest of the day I was reflecting on my situation. He didn’t know how much time he was spending on Facebook and how he depended on it for specific information. I was disturbed by the idea that my world was beginning to revolve around Facebook. What a terrible development.
At this point, I still don’t have access to Facebook. I’m not sure how long I’ll be locked out; it could be a month or more. I don’t know how these things work.
Even though I thought it was a bad experience, I am beginning to realize that it was a good experience. Sometimes the best part of life comes from the worst experiences we have. God delights to reveal himself in the dark shadows of our human experience.
I thought of a verse in the New Testament, “Rejoice in the Lord always; and again I say: Rejoice. Let your moderation be known to all men. The Lord is near.”
(Philippians 4: 4-5).
Each experience gives me a new opportunity to rejoice in the Lord. My joy certainly does not come from Facebook but from Christ.