The past few weeks of blog posts have been pretty deep, and often a bit heavy.  They may have been hard to read or focus on.  I know they were often hard for me to write because there were difficult lessons that I didn’t want to learn.

So I told myself that THIS week would be different.  Oh yes, this week is going to be light and maybe even a touch humorous.  That was my grand plan to give all of us a break from the weightiness of the past month.

For the first part of this waiting period, I just assumed God would come through with a clear topic that matched my requirements.  When it didn’t happen quickly, I then decided to ASK God for a nice humorous idea.  No need to panic.  God has ALWAYS shown up for me.

But he’s been pretty quiet and it’s now into the weekend before the post is due and I got nothin’.  So not unlike Abraham, who chose to take things into his own hands by sleeping with Sarah’s maid in order to get the promised heir from God, I, too, decided I needed to force this issue, and try to make it happen under my own strength.

Now granted, my situation doesn’t come close to the gravity of Abraham’s disobedience and consequences; and yet, the heart of both might be quite similar.  That’s just a quick observation, not the crux of this post.

I started looking intently for something lighthearted and/or humorous that had happened recently.  Maybe I’m just not listening to God hard enough.  Maybe I’m not being quiet enough before him.  I’ve pulled that mistake too many times to count.

Then an awful thought hit me.  What if God doesn’t want me to have a light, humorous post?  What if he wants to take another week to give me a hard lesson?

So, begrudgingly, I started faintly listening for this direction from God, still praying that it was not the road he wanted me to take.

Before I give you the end of this story, I have a couple of scenarios I need to set up for you, to get the most out of said ending.

First of all, one of my [many] puppy frustrations has been what seemed like a constant spilling of Maisy’s food dish.  I feed the girls separately and Maisy gets the laundry room.  Countless times, right before I was able to pick up her full bowl of kibble, she’d dance on top of it, scattering the bowlful all over the laundry room floor, and especially under both the washer and the dryer.  I’d have to kinda yell at her in my frustration…

I did my best to recover those hidden pieces by using a yardstick (you youngsters can Google what that is) to get them from under the appliances.  I was mildly successful, and yet, deep down I knew that there were likely several bowlfuls still lurking amongst the dust and grime underneath.

That’s scenario #1 to keep in mind.

The second set up is the major cleaning project I’ve undertaken the past couple of weeks.  It’s that infamous Spring housecleaning that does NOT happen annually at my house.  Nor is it ever started or completed in Spring.

Nonetheless, I have been in cleaning beast mode these past days, attacking all the areas that get ignored during the regular house cleaning.  You know, baseboards, light fixtures, blinds, curtains, closets, cubby holes, and the list goes on and on.

When I got to the laundry room this week, I knew I would be pulling both appliances away from the wall and facing the ugliness that lie beneath.  By the way, I could add this to the list of things that are hard to do alone – see my blog on THAT topic here.

As I expected, there was a small mountain of dog kibble mixed in with the dryer dust and other unidentifiable items lurking in the dark.  I smiled to myself as I thought back over all those frustrating spillages in my past.  Grateful that Maisy has stopped dancing on her food bowl, and that I have gotten wiser (and quicker) about avoiding that little disaster.

As I write this, it is Saturday, which is laundry day for me.  And to be clear, I still have no blog post idea.  As I stepped in to add a load to the washer, what do you suppose I did?  That’s right, I stepped right on Maisy’s FULL bowl of dog food, scattering it all over the laundry room floor, and especially under the appliances!

I couldn’t do anything but laugh out loud.  And get my trusty yardstick out again to retrieve as many pieces as I could.  Then I knew almost immediately that God had indeed given me a humorous blog topic.

I had even suspected that God’s humor might be at my expense. Of course it was!

While I wasn’t really expecting a post with any lessons (I just wanted something to make us all chuckle), there were a few lessons in it all.

• God ALWAYS shows up with a blog post idea.  Every. Single. Time.
• His timing is always perfect.
• He is with us in the minutiae of our daily lives.
• While I got perturbed every time Maisy spilled her food, God flipped the narrative and made me the offender this time. I deserved it, especially the day AFTER I cleaned it all. That, too, made me laugh.  He didn’t yell at me.
• And maybe most obvious for me, as the title indicates – yes, God does have a sense of humor!

I hope you enjoyed this slight departure from the weightiness of the past few weeks.  I’m still smiling, and I’m envisioning God doing the same as he looks down into my little doggie kibble world.

A joyful heart is good medicine.

Proverbs 17:22a