Liz Curtis Higgs - Help! Im Laughing and I Cant Get Up: Fall-Down Funny Stories to Fill Your Heart and Lift Your Spirit

Help!
Im Laughing
and I Cant Get Up

Other Books by Liz Curtis Higgs

Nonfiction for women:

One Size Fits All and Other Fables
Only Angels Can Wing It, the Rest of Us Have to Practice
Forty Reasons Why Life Is More Fun After the Big 40
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, Have I Got News for You!

Fiction for young children:

The Pumpkin Patch Parable
The Parable of the Lily
The Sunflower Parable
The Pine Tree Parable

Help!
Im Laughing
and I Cant Get Up

Liz Curtis Higgs

Copyright 1998 by Liz Curtis Higgs.

All rights reserved. Written permission must be secured from the publisher to use or reproduce any part of this book, except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson, Inc., Publishers.

The Bible version used in this publication is THE NEW KING JAMES VERSION. Copyright 1979, 1980, 1982, 1990, Thomas Nelson, Inc., Publishers.

Portions of chapters 7, 8, 10, and 13 first appeared in Todays ChristianWoman, a publication of CTI, Inc.

Portions of Chapter 2 first appeared in Marriage Partnership, a publication of CTI, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Higgs, Liz Curtis.
Help! Im laughing and I cant get up / Liz Curtis Higgs.
p. cm.

ISBN 0-7852-7614-9 (pbk.)

1. Christian lifeHumor. 2. Higgs, Liz Curtis. I. Title.
BV4515.2.H54 1998
248.4'02'07dc21

97-52571
CIP

Printed in the United States of America.

1 2 3 4 5 6 QPK 03 02 01 00 99 98

Dedication

This book is dedicated to the funniest man I have ever knownmy handsome, loving, brilliant, dry-of-wit, full-of-fun, fabulous Foggy Bill.

Table of Contents

5. The Nervous Laugh:
Its Hard to Laugh Up Your Sleeve
When Youre Wearing Your Birthday Suit

7. The Frustrated Laugh:
How to De-Tangle a Bad Humor Day

8. The Tickled Laugh:
Tickling Permitted (Funny Bones Only, Please)

12. Humor and Friendship:
Friends Laugh with Their Elbows

13. Humor and Work: Funny Business Is
Good Business

16. The Sunny Sense of Humor:
Let a Smile Be Your Umbrella

17. The Cloudy Sense of Humor:
On Second Thought, Take the Umbrella

18. The Stormy Sense of Humor:
It Was a Dark and Stormy Night

19. The Foggy Sense of Humor:
It Was a Gray and Foggy Day

21. Humor and Healing:
It Only Hurts When I (Dont) Laugh

22. Humor as a Stress-Reliever:
Joy Comes in the Morning, Unless You Wake Up
on the Wrong Side of the Bed

23. Humor and Perspective:
Someday Well Laugh About This

24. Humor and Forgiveness:
When You Reach Your Wits End, Turn Right

25. Humor and the Lord:
Glad Tidings of Great Joy

Most writers are indebted to so many people by the time a book hits the store shelves that it would require yet another volume to thank them all! Forgive me if I limit myself to one heartfelt page (alright, so I needed a smidge more on a second) of gratitude to some very special people who made sure that I could stand up rather than fall down through the seemingly endless process of putting this book together:

To more than five hundred fabulous folks from all fifty states, plus Germany, Australia, Canada, Scotland, and France, who contributed their stories and surveysmay the finished product give you half as much joy as you gave me.

To Gloria Looney and her nimble fingers for putting hundreds of stories, facts, and funnies on disk for me, thereby giving me a fighting chance at hitting my deadlinebless you, Mrs. Looney.

To Janet Thoma and Todd Ross, my editors and encouragersthanks for catching my vision for this project.

To Dennis Hill, whose own sense of humor and playfulness is captured here in delightful black and white (and red all over!)you, sir, are a hoot.

To Sara Fortenberry, awesome literary agent, who believes in my dreams and then supports them.

To some twelve hundred meeting planners across these United States who have invited me to bring a dose of humor to their amazing audiences over the last dozen yearsyour enthusiasm for this message made every airplane meal (almost) delicious!

To my humor buddies, on the platform and on the page, who keep me laughingthanks for helping me practice what I preach.

To my online LoveKnot sistersthanks for all your prayers!

To my precious children, Matthew and Lillian, who put up with a lot of pizza while Mom was screaming, Help! Im writing and I cant get upextra cheese and lots of hugs for both of you! XOXO

Most of all, to you, dear readerbless you for being wise enough to include laughter in your life. Pass it on!

Forewarning: Abandon Soap,
All Ye Who Enter Here

Skip the Safeguard, toss the Ivory, give Dial the old heave-ho: This book contains nothing but clean humor!

No need to wash out your mouth with soap after youve read a passage aloud to a friend.

No smarmy innuendos to make you blush, nor four-letter words to offend (unless you count hoot).

No put-downs to tickle your funny bone while bruising someone elses.

Nothing but good, clean humor that fills rather than empties, lifts rather than flattens, encourages rather than disheartens.

I agree with Carma from Utah who says, Laughing feels so good when its clean and everyone can enjoy the laugh.

Trust me. This book is so clean it squeaks like a duck! Dive right in, my friend, the waters fine.

Encouraging People
Through Laughter

You are holding this book for three possible reasons:

1. You enjoy laughing.

2. Someone who knows you thinks you arent laughing enough.

3. Youre visiting a friends house, and this book was in their reading basket next to the bathtub.

Whether you chose to be here or were dragged into this, Im thrilled to have you along for the read. Especially since this book wont be funny without you.

Thats right. You, babe. All a humorist can do is provide an opportunity for laughter, but youre the one who makes the noise.

Start whenever youre ready.

Your Jest
Is as Good
as Mine

I have had a call to literature of a low orderhumorous. It is nothing to be proud of, but it is my strongest suit.
Mark Twain

I make a living encouraging people through laughter. For years I didnt have the nerve to call myself a humorist. Too scary. What if they didnt laugh?

But they did laugh. Even when I wasnt being funny (which was really scary).

Then people started making me laugh. (Laughter is, after all, contagious.) I found scribbled notes stuffed in my purse when I wasnt looking. Long, chatty letters arrived in my mailbox. When I included a humor survey with an issue of my free newsletter, The Laughing Heart, more than five hundred people from all fifty states responded with their own funny experiences, many of which landed between the covers of this book.

Its easier to share humor from the platform than on paper because when Im watching an audience live and in person, I immediately know if something is funny or not. If its not, I stop! The apostle John said it so well: