If it has been long since you laughed at yourself or somebody else, I sure invite you to come to my house and take one of the Banko’s with you for a week. Don’t worry, I won’t charge you.

These people know how to crack up even the most serious person you can ever find.

You see, I spend most of my time dealing with very serious life issues. So, it is sometimes hard for me to smile, let alone laugh.

But God is good all the time. He blessed me with these funny families who know how to crack me up. You have no idea how funny my Berhan is and the kids are picking up from him very well. They usually make my day! Like yesterday!
Let me give you some background story before I tell you how my kids made my day yesterday. Don’t you like to read something that cracks you up? I do! Life won’t be easy without laughing.

So, I tend to tell my kids about my childhood stories, including my “embarrassing moments.” They enjoy listening to those stories. I recently told them one of those embarrassing moments and they loved it! Let me tell you that story.

While I was in ninth grade, I had a crash on one of the guys in the other ninth grade and one of my friends had a crash on his friend.  But there was one problem: We didn’t know each other. We just stared at each other and that was it. We were five girls. We the girls were trying to dance and jump up and down to get their full attention and that was all we could do. The boys were scared to come and talk to us.

One day, while we were going from one building to another building, we noticed that those guys were already outside the building, standing in front of us; like one block away from us. There were stairs we could use to go to the other building but we sometimes choose to jump.

That day, I thought it was a nice day to show off before those boys. So, I said to my friends, “Let’s not use the stairs; let’s jump; but let’s jump slowly and see who is going to hold on to the move before we land on the ground.” They agreed with my crazy idea.

Well, I landed last on the ground but I fell down terribly. When I tried to get up quickly, my dress twisted my  legs and I fell down again. Imagine, those guys were standing and watching the whole drama.

You have no idea how painful it was but I pretended as if nothing happened. My knees were bleeding but I acted as if I was in the mood to fly on the air.

Talk about embarrassment, I wanted to die. I was promising to myself, “You will never come to this school again” as if I didn’t have parents.

Well, I told my kids that story and you have no idea how much they enjoyed it. And I thought they forgot about it.

Well, they didn’t forget about it and here is the evidence:

Yesterday, my little one and his sister had a basketball practice after school. So I picked them up around 5:45pm. Then my older one called saying that he was done with his rugby practice. So, with my two cubs, I went directly to his school.

I know which door he and his friends come out. So, I directly went to that door. Just before I pulled my car to the door, an ambulance came with its siren and lights. It was heading to other door.

Looking at the ambulance, I asked my kids, “What do you think is going on here?”

Then my little one who was sitting at the back on the right side, looking through the car window, without thinking about what he was going to say, he said, “Probably, a girl was trying to impress a guy and fell off of a hill and broke her bones or something.”

My! My! My! I stopped the car to laugh! You have no idea how much that joke made my day.

I’m not sure how much entertaining and funny that story is for you but for me, it was off-the-chart! While I was laughing and enjoying the moment, one thing came to my heart:

I was very stressed about something yesterday. Actually I was extremely stressed and wanted something to make me forget about it.

When it was time to pick up my kids, as I always do, I prayed saying “Lord, please help me be a kind of mother You want me to be to my kids. And please help me enjoy them and the time I am going to have with them.”

I know that the Banko’s are very funny people but sometimes I choose not to laugh at their silly jokes. I so concentrate on those “urgent and quick” things that I excuse myself saying, “I really don’t have time to laugh and make jokes.” I know that is foolishness.

But yesterday, I consciously made myself ready to laugh, to hear about their day and all the locker room jokes and enjoy every bit of it. I turned off the radio and my phone and gave them my full attention. Then I’ve received what I desired the most; to laugh like crazy!

The Bible says: “The preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue, is from the Lord.” Proverbs 16:1 (KJV)

What do we want to receive from God? Are we ready to receive it? Do we prepare ourselves to receive what God is so ready to give to us? Sometimes we just pray for God to give us an air-plane without preparing an “airport” to park the airplane at. Giving the air-plane is God’s part, preparing an airport is our part. ///