THE BLISS IN LAUGHTER


“A cheerful disposition is good for your health; gloom and doom leave you bone-tired.” Proverb 17:22 MSG

Laughter is part of God’s nature as well as ours, His image-bearer. It doesn’t mean that you are carnal or stupid when you laugh; it’s just human nature.

God deliberately included laughter in our DNA. I’ve heard some people said the opposite, but I disagree. How can you say you are joyful if you can’t express it? Or how can you say you cherish a relationship if you don’t add any sense of humour to it? See, laughter is God’s idea and His gift to us regardless of the challenges in this world. I guess many have a misconception about God’s nature. They find it uneasy to accept God as a loving and humorous Father. Did I just say humorous? Yes! Check it up in the Scripture.

“The Lord shall laugh at him…” Psalms 37:13a.

“He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh…” Psalms 2:4a.

“But thou, O LORD, shalt laugh at them…” Psalms 59:8a

Some of the promises of God are laughter related like; gladness, joy and rejoicing.

“Blessed are ye that weep now: for ye shall laugh.” Luke 6:21b.

“To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness…” Isaiah 61:3.

“Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing: thou hast put off my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness;” Psalms 30:11.

Sometimes in life, one problem follows another, and before you know it, our day is ruined. But if you must soar over your problem and also have less psychological stress despite life challenges, then you must learn to laugh at your circumstances. If you allow your joy to be shattered by the challenges of life, then you’ll lose strength. But when you laugh at situations, you regain strength to push ahead.

‘Laugh and the world laughs with you’, goes a saying. Laughter is typically seen as an expression of happiness, joy, surprise and even stress. It can also be an expression of scorn, derision, sarcasm or ridicule. It is part of the universal human vocabulary that cut across culture, age and nationality. Just like crying, laughter is one of the preverbal ways of communication for infants. Laughter is a very conspicuous human behaviour but frequently overlooked.

Though, laughter occurs most of the time unconsciously, it can also be done consciously with the same effect. There are many explanations to why we laugh; nevertheless, one of such is that it is triggered by many sensations and thoughts that tend to activate many parts of the body; the face, the vocal organs, while the muscles of the arms, legs and trunk are sometimes involved.

It has been proven that laughter facilitates social bonding. Laughter produces endorphin in our brain that make us feel immediately better and relieved afterwards. Laughter is a great way to create and share feelings of pleasure and joy with others.

Just as it is unveiled in the Scripture, research has also shown that there are numerous benefits of laughter, of which many people are unaware of. Like it is said, ‘laughter is the best medicine’. Laughter is like a magnetic force that has the potential of drawing many benefits to you, ranging from psychological, social, spiritual and many health benefits. Even though many are aware of these, they do not seem to enjoy the benefits of laughter because of the challenges of life which tends to keep them in the opposite side of life.

10 HEALTH BENEFITS OF LAUGHTER
  1. Blood Pressure - Laughter lowers blood pressure which in turn reduces the risk of strokes and heart attacks.
  2. Hormones - Laughter reduces stress hormone levels in the body which indirectly cut the anxiety and stress impacting your body. This in turn relaxes the muscles.
  3. Cardiac Health - Laughter improves cardiac health especially for those who are incapable of doing some physical activities due to injury or illness. It gets the heart pumping and burns a similar amount of calories.
  4. Immune - Your T cells are activated when your laugh. T cells are specialized immune system cells just waiting in your body for activation, and when they are activated they help to fight off sicknesses.
  5. Pain reduction - Endorphins are release during laughter. Endorphins are the body’s natural pain killer. It helps to ease chronic pain and makes you feel good all over.
  6. Well-being - Laughter increases your overall sense of well-being. Doctors have found that people who have a positive outlook on life tends to fight diseases better than people who tends to be negative.
  7. Mental functioning – Laughter is known to enhance mental functioning.
  8. Respiration - Laughter increases the level of oxygen consumption of the body; thereby accelerates breathing which in turn improves respiration.
  9. Sleep - Laughter indirectly helps in getting better sleep.
  10. Burns calories – Laughing for 10 minutes a day can burn the same number of calories as a half-hour exercise.

 10 PSYCHOLOGICAL BENEFITS OF LAUGHTER
  1. Decreases anxiety.
  2. Lessens tension.
  3. Eases stress.
  4. Reduces depression.
  5. Reduces loneliness.
  6. Builds self-esteem.
  7. Restores hope and energy.
  8. Provides a sense of empowerment and control.
  9. Increases learning and retention.
  10. Improves alertness, creativity and memory.

10 SOCIAL BENEFITS OF LAUGHTER
  1. Connects you to people and foster relationship.
  2. Makes people to be comfortable with you.
  3. Dissolves anger.
  4. Improves interpersonal interaction.
  5. Increases friendliness and helpfulness.
  6. Lowers stress level.
  7. Increases the sense of belonging.
  8. Laughter makes you attractive to your friend, loved ones and the opposite sex.
  9. It can make people build trust in you.
  10. It can be infectious.

12 KEYS TO EMBRACING A LIFE OF LAUGHTER

Here are some things you can do to embrace a lifestyle of laughter:
  1. Smile always.
  2. Learn to count your blessing.
  3. Spend time with playful and funny people.
  4. Spend time with children.
  5. Bring humour to your conversation.
  6. Have a playful attitude especially with children and pet.
  7. Watch funny movies, comedy and TV shows.
  8. Cultivate an attitude of reading comic and jokes.
  9. Learn to crack jokes especially about stressful situations rather than complaining about them.
  10. Always try to see the funny side of things. Look at situations from the lighter side of life.
  11. Don’t take everything in life to be too serious. 
  12. Don’t be too hard on yourself when you make mistake. Learn to look at your own face in the mirror and laugh at yourself.


BROUGHT BACK TO LIFE AFTER MORE THAN 13 HOURS ACCOMPANY BY MIRACULOUS HEALING


Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today and forever. What Jesus did while He walked this earth, He is still doing and He will keep doing for as many that believes in His supernatural power.

John Samuel Ugwute experiences the resurrected power of God after He was certified dead for more than thirteen hours by two professional doctors in Australia and India. He gave the testimony in the presence of the congregation of God which was witnessed by many dignitaries and family members who once thought that they have lost their brother, friend and father to the power of death.  In his words in said:

John Samuel Ugwute
“I had suffered cardiological defect for five years, unknown to me, thinking the pain I usually experienced on my chest region was a normal thing, because cardiological defect is only common in infants, and it was not detected in me from birth, during those periods, I usually collapsed and vomited blood from different outlets of my body. I suffered ignorantly until I went for a cardiological examination last year and the result revealed that I had seven holes in my ventricles.

After trying out surgical repair which proved abortive, I was referred to India for an orthopedic heart transplant which costs 24million naira, which of course we did not have. We were able to raise a substantial amount through the contribution of friends and the state government; I embarked on the journey with my doctor.  But because of financial constraints, the visa of my brother, Emmanuel Rooney Ugwute who was supposed to go with me was delayed.

Before setting out for India, I made a covenant with God to save me from the problem because of my Father, Pastor John Ugwute, a man of God, holding on to the scripture where it was written that God saved Lot because of Abraham.

On getting to New Delhi India, I collapsed the heart machine (pacifier) I was wearing which helps in controlling my blood pressure failed. I was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance. On getting to the hospital, the head surgeon said they cannot treat me, because I was four weeks behind schedules, saying that the hospital (Fortis Hospital) was not known for failure, that their jobs are always perfect. They then asked me to go back to Nigeria. At that point, prophetic declarations kept coming to my mind, I held on to them. The doctors after doing a check-up said I had just 4 days left. My doctor with his connection was able to get me to Australia in a private jet to a private hospital; the flight lasted thirteen hours. When the Doctors in Australia did their check-up, they said I was dead. They questioned my doctor for not telling them the severity of my case before bringing me to them. They asked me to sign an eighty to twenty percent agreement, because they said I had an eighty percent chance of dying, and twenty percent chance of survival.


I instructed my surgeon to only communicate with my brother Rooney Ugwute once I entered the theatre, because I felt he was the only that could take whatever news the doctor gave him. The last thing I remembered in Australia was entering into the theatre, thereafter I died. 

Ugwute with congregation in Worship
Immediately I died, the Doctor sent a message to my brother, issues a death certificate with four am Australian time as the death time. They contacted my doctor in Nigeria to contact my family to inform them about it, and work out how to receive my corps. While they were on the way back to India with my corpse in the private jet for another thirteen hours, a supernatural surgery was being performed on me by God; I saw a picture of where I was being cut open to replace my damaged heart with a new one. 

The Ugwute family
On getting to India I was pushed into a temporary mortuary by a nurse, immediately the nurse was about to shut the door of the mortuary, I woke up and started shouting due to the cold nature of the mortuary. The nurse on hearing my voice got, scared and ran away. I kept on shouting until my surgeon heard my voice, ran into the mortuary and brought me out. Looking round I asked him why we were in India instead of Australia. That was when he told me I died in Australia. I did not believe him. Since I woke up, I asked them to continue with the surgery, because the doctor said they could not carry on with it since I died.  The Doctors agreed, took me to scan so they could get the position of my heart well, before starting the surgery. After the scanning, the same Doctor started shouting saying my heart is normal; and that the holes were no longer there.  I had to ask my Doctor why the Indian doctors were shouting. Then wondering, he asked me, how come I died and woke up after thirteen hours, and how  the holes were no longer in my heart. At that point, the first word that came to my mind was MIRACLE. I requested to go home to Nigeria immediately; the same flight that was already booked to take my corpse home brought me back alive.

On getting to Lagos my Doctor demanded to do a scan on me before he can believe  that the holes were no longer there like they said in India. After a complete examination that lasted for about thirty minutes, the result came out and it confirmed what was said in India, that I was completely healed, and my damaged heart was replaced with a brand new heart, without carrying out the surgery that took me to India”.

Agbor, Delta State

Nigeria

THE HEALING AND STOPPING OF THE SPREAD OF CHICKENPOX



Faresimi
Our God is a healing God, He declares that He is the Lord that heals us (Exodus 15:26). It’s also good to know that God still answers prayers. About two weeks ago, I requested that the Church of God should join me to pray for my last born daughter, Faresimi, for God to heal her of Chickenpox.

Initially, the condition looks minute but later it was tending to become a serious Chickenpox condition if not for God’s mercy that stopped it. God heard the prayers of the saints and healed her perfectly.

Another great thing that God did was that no other person in our family of six contracted this highly infectious viral disease. It was a rare case according to medicine and from people’s experiences. I remember that one of the doctor said that we should get ready to treat and help another member of the family because he was too sure that it will spread to another member of my family. But God, because of His mercy, the Lord stop the plague from spreading further in the family.

Let’s be careful of what some medical personnel will what us to believe but rather strive to stand on the Word of God that never fails. For the Lord has said “… He will make an utter end: affliction shall not rise up the second time.” (Nehemiah 1:9).


Thank You Jesus.

Mrs. R. Ekoja
Warri, Delta State
Nigeria.
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