My family is on vacation this week, and in honor of family trips gone wrong, here’s a little summer travel excerpt from Life is Messy, God is Good:

I appreciate how Home Alone completely lowered the bar on family travel expectations after the parents left Kevin at home TWICE. Not to mention that biblically speaking, Jesus’ parents lost Him for more than three days while returning home from Jerusalem.

I’m encouraged that if Joseph and Mary had a parenting fail and lost the Messiah, I can calm the heck down about the Colorado trip where we lost all of our groceries (and most of our hanging clothes) out the back of our car in the middle of the Breckenridge roundabout. And then several days later, my husband went all Evel Knievel off a bike jump, which landed him in the ER with broken ribs and a punctured lung (all of which I weirdly got on video in slow motion). 

Good memories, that trip, but may it never be called a vacation. 

As much as I love a good family trip, it’s DEFINITELY not a vacation when the kids are involved. (Oh, and if you want to see the cringy bike accident video, follow me on Instagram and shoot me a DM.)

But I digress. 

On today’s show we’re talking with Molly Stillman about why laughter matters. Molly’s a podcaster, author, wife, mother, and just a hilarious individual. She has a great reminder on the physical and spiritual benefits of laughter. If you’re anything like me, this is a much-needed message as summer continues to go on (and on and on and on). 

All things Cynthia

Check out Molly’s new book, If I Don’t Laugh, I’ll Cry: How Death, Debt, and Comedy Led to a Life of Faith, Farming, and Forgetting What I Came into This Room For.