A sense of humour

In a book on successful ageing(!) George Sweeting begins surprisingly with a chapter: Lighten Up. He writes how humour combats stress and helps us to creatively cope with life.  Sadly, there are going to be many situations today where talk about lightening up will be entirely inappropriate.  Imposed cheerfulness can be a curse.  But, in today's prayers I was faced by A. Bullivant's prayer:

Give us a sense of humour, Lord,
and also things to laugh about.
Give us the grace to take a joke against ourselves
and to see the funny side of life.
Save us from annoyance, bad temper,
or resentfulness against our friends.
Help us to laugh even in the face of trouble;
and fill our minds with the love of Jesus,
for his name's sake.  Amen.

It made me think of my DIY attempt two weeks ago.  We have a very grubby downstairs area which needs repainting. Summoning energy to find the paint the decorator left from 7 years ago - energy because it was hidden away in the attic and I also needed some brushes. In a box in the garage I eventually found an unopened pack of three.  Stirring the paint, I plunged the largest brush in and slapped paint onto the worst wall.  To my horror a multitude of bristles streamed out in the paint.  Stupidly I tried again thinking it was the first flush and found it even worse.  Trying to cover the mess I used the two smaller brushes to pick up the bristles. They both made further healthy deposits too. I tore off some kitchen roll and started scrubbing frantically.  The result was an extraordinary mess of a half-hairy wall. Obviously brushes have sell-by dates.  Finding another brush I later revisited the troubled wall with more success.  And then I was really able to laugh about the whole stupid mess I had got into.  I know it was stupid but there is a time for that prayer above.