Smile

I’ve had two giant smiley face balloons floating in my office since September 5th. When I bought them I asked how long they would remain filled with helium. “Will they last ok until Sunday?” “Yes, they assured me, “they’ll last a good two weeks!”

They’ve lasted almost nine and counting.

It doesn’t always go that way, does it? At the ladies’ coffee fellowship time at HyVee this morning, the subject of the poor quality of modern appliances came up. One person had had a deep freeze for close to fifty years and it still deeply froze, as promised. We recently had a refrigerator/freezer for about four years before it stopped refrigerating and freezing.

“They don’t make ‘em like they used to” is all too true.

Kinda makes a person want to turn their smile upside down.

But that, in and of itself, is an upside down idea, isn’t it? We’re supposed to “turn your frown upside down”, right? But what about when we don’t feel like smiling? What about when we truly can’t?

There’s a lot of hard stuff going on in the world today. Things feel chaotic. People are ill. Money is tight. Doesn’t really make me want to grin. Maybe we don’t feel good, or our kids are struggling, or the car is out of gas and payday is still three days away. Sometimes smiling simply isn’t on our Bingo card. Does that mean we’re “unchristian” or “dragging others down”? Should we fake a smile and pretend that everything is hunky dory?

Before I answer that, I need to point something out. I am a smiley person. I’m an optimist. I like to laugh and I do so a lot. It’s my default mode. If I don’t know how to respond, I laugh. If I am nervous, I laugh. If I didn’t quite hear what you said, I laugh and hope that wasn’t an inappropriate response.

That being said, more than once I’ve been walking in the grocery store, for example, and concentrating on the task at hand. I’ve not been smiling and I’ve not been laughing. But nor have I been grumpy; I’ve simply been focused. In those times I’ve had people I know come up to me and say things like, “Smile! Things can’t be that bad!”

This makes me cross. For goodness sake! Simply because I’m not smiling doesn’t mean I’m not content.

And I think that’s the answer to my question.

We don’t have to pretend that everything is perfect. Sometimes we’re focused on shopping, not on smiling. Maybe our grocery list has made us think about stressful things. Maybe we have a headache. Do I have to smile when a person (rather rudely) tells me to “turn my frown upside down”?

No, no I don’t.

But what that demanding person needs to realize is that a smile proves nothing. Smiles can be faked, and pretty much anything fake is not ideal.

What matters is what’s genuinely going on on the inside. What matters is contentment. Peace in the midst of the storm; even without a smile to show for it.

In the middle of the unsmiling thoughts about bills or illness or politics, are we still content? Are we still resting in the knowledge that God is in control (thankfully) and he is unphased by the chaos? Are we finding the “fullness of joy in his presence” that Psalm 16:11 talks about?

It doesn’t say that God’s presence brings smiles and grins. “Fullness of joy” means, I believe, fully accepting that God is sovereign over everything and we can trust him and that trust brings us profound rest and happiness.

"There is a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance" (Ecclesiastes 3).

And he has made everything beautiful in its time.

Everything. Even a face that isn’t perpetually smiling.


“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing.” Romans 15:13