Laughing Out Loud
Huh? What?!
I did a double take as we were singing in church. We were on the first verse of a hymn I don’t know when my eyes dropped down a line to the second verse and I saw “lol,” as in the digital-age texting acronym for, “laughing out loud.”
The hymn is “In the Cross of Christ I Glory,” an old one with text penned in 1825 and the music in 1849. I don’t recall ever singing it before, so there was room for my unfamiliar mind to play tricks on me.
And then we sang the second verse: “When the woes of life o’er-take me, hopes deceive and fears annoy, never shall the cross forsake me: lo! it glows with peace and joy.”
Aha, the word was “lo!” and definitely not “lol.”
But as we sang on, I realized that “lol” works just fine there. Because in the cross of Christ we not only can glory but we can laugh out loud at the woes of life. True, they hurt and pain us and cause us grief and tears – oh my, yes they do – but in God’s grand plan these things are fleeting. God has the last word. And we, through Christ, have the last laugh.