I read a story on Facebook about Charlie Chaplin. You may have it, too. Supposedly, Chaplin steps onto a stage, tells a simple joke, and has the audience roaring with laughter. He pauses, then tells the same joke again, just a few chuckles. Tried a third time, silence.

Then he looks at the crowd and says, “If you can’t laugh at the same joke over and over, why keep crying over the same pain?”

Now, I’ll be honest, I went looking, and I can’t find any evidence that this moment really happened in Chaplin’s life. But even if it’s just a story, it teaches a truth we all need to remember. There’s Gospel in that moment if you know where to look.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned both from years of carrying pain and from listening to the real Gospel, it’s that God never asks us to get over it on our own. Performance-based religion will tell you to “try harder,” or “have more faith,” or “move on.” But the Spirit, the Comforter, meets you where you are. He sits beside you, sometimes in the dark, sometimes when all you can do is replay the same old story.

But here’s the miracle: Healing never comes from repeating the pain. It comes when you let God show you what’s real, that you are already loved, already carried, already made whole in Jesus, even with all the scars.

Grace is never about pretending the hurt isn’t real. It’s about learning to see, maybe for the first time, that your pain is not the deepest truth about you. Christ in you is. The Father’s love for you is.

Chaplin’s joke falls flat after a while, but isn’t that just like the stories we tell ourselves about our wounds? The first time we talk about them, people may cry with us, comfort us, or even understand. But the more we rehearse the pain, the more we get lost in it. We begin to think our pain is our identity.

The Gospel isn’t about what you must do, but about what God has already done. The present moment right now is drenched in the love of God. You are not abandoned to relive yesterday’s sorrows. The Spirit opens your eyes to see beauty even in the ordinary: the taste of good food, a song, the warmth of sunlight on your face. These are not distractions from your pain. They are invitations to remember you belong to a Father who is not offended by your sadness, but is always calling you home.

Performance-based religion will push you to “get past it.” Jesus sits with you. He never asks you to ignore your tears or “move on.” But he does remind you, gently, “You are not your pain. You are my beloved.”

Every time we rehearse the old pain, we’re living in a memory that Christ already entered, already redeemed. The power of the Gospel is that you don’t have to carry your sorrow into every tomorrow. You are safe in him. You can let go not by force, but by trust.

Grace is God’s empowering presence in your weakness. You can cry. But don’t set up camp in your sadness. Don’t make it your home. God is not waiting for you on the other side of the pain. He’s here, now, holding you together.

This is where Zig Ziglar, a very popular Christian speaker, would lean in, with that easy smile and a bit of Southern wisdom: “You cannot tailor-make the situations in life, but you can tailor-make the attitudes to fit those situations.” Zig would remind you that while you can’t always change what happens to you, you do get to choose how you respond. Even when pain comes uninvited, your response, especially when shaped by faith and gratitude, can change everything about how that pain shapes you.

He’d tell you that “Gratitude is the healthiest of all human emotions.” If you’re finding it hard to laugh, start by finding one thing you’re thankful for, just one. Gratitude has a way of turning our gaze away from what we’ve lost and opening us up to what God is doing right now, even in the middle of the mess.

Zig again said, “Don’t let yesterday take up too much of today.” Rehearsing yesterday’s hurt steals today’s possibilities. Permit yourself to live fully in the present, trusting that God’s goodness isn’t just a memory, it’s a living reality.

Zig Ziglar said, “When you focus on problems, you’ll have more problems. When you focus on possibilities, you’ll have more opportunities.” God’s grace always gives us a new perspective, a new possibility, a new opportunity to let go of what weighs us down and take hold of what lifts us up.

Chaplin wasn’t just a master of comedy; he was a quiet prophet of the human heart. If you’re tired of telling the same story of hurt, let grace write you a new one, not by erasing the past, but by meeting you in it, and showing you the Father’s delight in you right now.

So let the tears come when they need to. But let laughter come, too. Not because life is perfect, but because Jesus is enough. Because you are loved. Because there is joy waiting to be noticed, like manna in the morning.

God’s mercy is new every morning, not because you worked for it, but because you belong to him. Gratitude is the bridge from pain to praise. Every new day is another chance to let go of the old story and step into God’s story for you, full of hope, joy, and a future worth laughing about.

If you’re brave enough, let God love you right where you are. The old pain will lose its power, not by repetition, but by the gentle, stubborn love of the Father who never lets you go.