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Thank you all for your very kind and helpful suggestions.  Sorry I had to drop off for a bit.  I appreciate you guys and gals!

Since I lost my mom in 2021, it has been hard for me to continue writing while grieving.  Getting clarity is hard sometimes and it is easy to drift off into negative emotions and the general distress of the world driven by fear, violence, and sickness.  It is in these moments that holding to God’s certain and unchanging truths becomes so crucial to be able to cope.  I noticed that my bookshelves are stocked with many novels that have very little if any comedic and light-hearted subjects. I looked through the Forum post and sadly could not find any writing topics that dealt with Comedy.  I realized that in response to Philippians 4:8, I needed to find more of the healing release that God gives us in the form of laughter.  We live in challenging times prophetically, but as writers, we know that God is still in control even when it looks like all things that bring us comfort in life are stripped away.  I looked online in Christian and secular bookstores and could not find any humor written in the last two years from Christian sources, and I think we need to realize that gap in the market is where God can also use our gifts and talents to meet a need for people who only see the darkness around them.

In verse 12, of Philippians 4, Paul continues to assert that he found that joy and contentment, need not be determined by the external circumstances around us, but it finds strength (v.13) and certainty in the contentment that God brings in the midst of storms, and loss.

I realized that that need for unshakeable optimism must be anchored in the certitude of God’s sovereignty and His good intentions towards us.  It is easy to become distracted from that.  I struggle against those distractions every day.  But God does not want us to lose our joy.  He wants us to experience His peace that passes understanding (vs. 7) because it persists in situations and through trials where it is not understandable to the outside world to have peace.  When we truly experience joy in moments of trial that demonstrates a powerful testimony to those needing hope what that might look like.  I am not saying we laugh off the tragedy, far from it.  But that we catch a glimpse of those truths that God promises that bring us a kind of joy into our moments of trial.  Because we know we are never abandoned in those journeys through darkness, we are more equipped to survive the passage.  It strikes me that if we write a “faith-holding” character facing trials, we cannot just leave them to respond to it as the typical world does.  We have to infuse an element of faith that comes to them when they stumble.  A ray of hope that shines to them, when they cry out and feel the loss, or disorientation.

Can we find humor again in 2022?  Can we look beyond the darkness to find joy?  I hope so.  And I choose to believe that. He promised He will never leave us or forsake us.  I need His help and am grateful for each of your help to allow me to laugh again. <3 <3