Does God have a sense of humor?

Seven weeks ago, I was preparing to take my son Lucas and to board a train to North Dakota to visit my mother who was ill. On the way, at 5:30 a.m. as we were waiting for the train to refuel in Indianapolis, I received word that she had left us during the night and gone to be with our Lord. My brother, Joel, and his daughter, Lena, joined us in Chicago where we had to switch trains. It was obviously a rather somber meeting as we contemplated the reality that Mom would not be there when we arrived home.

As we were standing in the station talking, Joel mentioned that my sister had asked Mom what her favorite Bible verse was just a day or two earlier. She had said that it was Philippians 1:17. Neither of us could recall which verse that was, so Joel decided to look it up on his phone, wondering what wisdom she had desired to share. He had been reading from "The Message" earlier and so that was what version came up. He typed in Philippians 1:17 and this is what he read, "The others, now that I'm out of the picture, are merely greedy, hoping to get something out of it for themselves. Their motives are bad. They see me as their competition, and so the worse it goes for me, the better—they think—for them."

So now we wonder if Mom really knew what verse she was talking about and was planning a joke on us, or if it was God, with a sense of humor, speaking through her, preparing a moment of laughter in the midst of our sorrow. Either way, we are grateful.