A Joke a Day Keeps the Doctor Away

How about putting fun back in the fundamentals of the faith?

"I am devoting the rest of my life to turning my griping into gratitude, my murmuring into melody. I want to spend my days not bellyaching but singing the praises of God. Unfortunately, too many of us are stalled at the test of gratitude. A double dose of holy humor can cure that malady," says author Rev. Dr. Marshall L. Hoffman.

"Holy hilarity, a sanctified sense of humor, is strong medicine. "A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones" (Prov. 17:22 KJV). A merry heart keeps us from taking ourselves too seriously.

"One of the signs of a healthy mind is the ability to smile at ourselves and see the humorous side of everything we do.

"The medicine of a merry heart not only cures us from an exaggerated sense of self-importance, it tends to put space between us and the traumatic experiences in our lives. It acts as a buffer zone to absorb some of their bad vibrations. There's nothing like a merry heart to medicate you from the remorse and regrets of the woulda-coulda-shoulda syndrome."

One hundred and forty-seven daily portions of mirth--from jokes to rib-tickling stories, from tall tales to true accounts, from hilarious things kids say to funny things that happen in church--these drops of holy hilarity will lighten any heart.