I’ve been needing to write this post for months, but no matter what I tried, it just didn’t seem right. In one sense, trying to write it almost feels like cheapening the experience; as if I was bottling it up to save it for later. Which is one of the main reasons I turned to writing all those years ago. I needed somewhere to express my thoughts and pour out my sorrows, and also a place where I could preserve my happy moments. Rather like making wine and hiding it away in the cellar to bring out when I needed some cheering up. For a long time that was my approach to writing, but now…things are different.
As counterintuitive as it sounds, happiness is difficult to write. When you tell a story, you’re getting a character from point A to point B. What does he or she want, why can’t they have it, what do they have to do to obtain it, and what is standing in their way? With hopefully some growth and setbacks and twists along the way.
But how do you write about happiness? That place where the conflict finally is resolved, the dragon is slain, the maiden rescued, and everyone parties and starts a life of peace afterward? It’s the best part of the story precisely because of all they had to suffer on the way to it. Nobody writes about living in happiness. Maybe because so few people can relate to it.
All the same, happy seasons only come around for a little while! It is right to rejoice in them!
That’s the third reason I had such trouble writing this. My happiness feels like a burden on others. Even talking about it too much feels like I’m gloating.
That’s how I used to be toward people who were having their day in the sun. I used to think that happy people were either immature or just plain annoying. When I saw people who were aglow with happiness, I resented them. It felt like they were being happy AT me. I never got to feel that happy; and that rubbed salt in my wound. It was easier to just snort, roll my eyes, and steer clear of them. Being this happy gives me an uneasy sense of being a burden on everyone around me. Or worse, the suspicion that everyone could be watching me to snicker when the bubble bursts.
That’s the fourth reason I couldn’t decide how to write about it. My happiness frightened me. I’ve never been this happy, and it terrified me to think of losing it. I wasn’t going to write about it until I was absolutely certain all of this was real.
It is real, and it’s time to write about it. It’s a long story, and even longer when I tell it, but here’s what happened:
The Schoolmaster came back for me.
One snowy Friday in February he came to my office, startling me almost out of my wits. He said he had something to ask me, and would I meet him over coffee to discuss it?
You have to keep in mind, we’ve stayed on cordial terms all these years. We still went to the same church, saw each other around every week. Still spoke occasionally, still chatted in a mutual friend group. I’d been noticing dramatic changes in him, and even a shift in his manner toward me, but I was determined to keep my heart a friend toward him unless he told me anything different to my face in plain English.
So he’s asking me to meet him one-on-one to discuss something important. That could only mean one thing, but I stuck to my mental terms.
My eyebrows shot up and I skeptically asked him, “Really—?” (My tone being “I’m going to give you a chance to revise and walk back what you just said, because maybe you don’t realize what this implies.)
But he just smiled at me and replied, “Really.” In the calmest, surest, most composed voice I’ve ever heard him use. Confidence exuded from him; his stance, his voice, and his smile, with a wealth of meaning twinkling in his eyes. I’d never seen him like that before, in all the years I’ve known him.
“We have a lot to talk about.” He added.
Wow. Did we ever!
Unfortunately a family emergency caused him to fly out of state to take care of his parents. Then he got sick while he was there, resulting in a ten-day delay that I will never forget. We texted while he was gone, but I spent almost half of my waking moments in prayer, beseeching God for wisdom.
It wouldn’t be true to say I never got over him, because I did. I learned to let him go; several different times and in several different ways. I would have closure, and then I’d lose it. I lost respect for him, and then he earned it back. There were times when I sensed the tide was turning, only to find out I was completely wrong. Everything in our relationship changed many times, if only in my heart. Nothing ever stayed resolved in one way for long. The only constant, I think, was that I could never completely stop caring about him, praying for him, and wanting what was best for him. Which is basically what love boils down to. So you could say I loved him all along, but you can love a friend or a family member with sacrificial love, doing your best not to expect anything in return.
Well, he came back to town and asked me to dinner on a Monday night. I glanced at my calendar to see if that night was free and realized it was February 14th.
Oh, my! Nope, hadn’t made any plans for that night. So I accepted.
He took me out for a nice dinner, and when I gave him the floor, he told me all that God had been doing in his life over the past two years. How he clearly saw God’s direction in his life, and that he wanted me by his side as he walked in it.
Me! Not just a wife, or a suitable companion. He told me he always cared about me and respected me all these years. It just took God flipping some switch inside him to make him see me as more than a friend.
He offered me time to consider it, and truth be told I had been planning to ask him for a few days to fast and pray before making a decision.
I know this will sound like I was over-eager or too hasty, but I didn’t need time to think it over. I still had some questions in my mind that couldn’t be addressed properly yet, but I felt this unexplainable clarity in my mind. (Probably because I had sought the Lord’s guidance over last 10 days more passionately than I’d ever done before!) I could sense that God was in this, and that whatever was in store, He wanted me to walk down this road. It’s impossible to explain, but it’s what happened.
So I told him yes. We started dating, and both of us have been amazed to see how God has been working in and through this. In June he got on one knee and asked me to marry him, and I said yes again. Counseling is going well, we’ve told each other our stories, and we’ve been talking openly and honestly about everything we can think of. We’re getting married on October 22nd, which is just a few weeks from now.
The Schoolmaster technically isn’t a Schoolmaster anymore, so I guess I’ll have to come up with something else to call him. But I’ll say this: he loves the Lord more than anyone or anything else. He’s compassionate and a man of humility. He treats me with honor and wants to lead me and the children we hope to have in the fear of the Lord. All the potential I once saw in him has blossomed into fullness, along with so much more than I could’ve dreamed. It is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in my eyes.
So! How do you write about happiness? Well, let’s give it a whirl!
“This love is good, this love is bad,
This love is alive, back from the grave.
These hands had to let it go free, and
This love came back to me.”
I feel like I’m living in fan-fiction these days. These sorts of things happen in books, or in movies, or to other people, but now it’s happening to me! For the longest time I didn’t know what to do with myself. You’d be shocked at how few songs there are in musicals that depict this kind of happiness. The songs are all staged in the conflict and the growth. I can only find bits and pieces from songs that actually express what I feel.
“I will never lose faith, I will never lose heart
For you have restored my trust.
And I know you’re afraid, I’m as scared as you are
But willing to be brave
Brave enough for love.”
“Every word and every sentence
Doesn’t seem to make a difference
Nothing can explain just what you mean to me.
Every shape and all the colors
All the love from all the lovers
Never could express just what you mean to me.”
“So let’s begin again, try another way.
Let’s begin again, there’s a better way.
Rule a line and start once more
Learning from what’s gone before.
Let’s begin again; let’s find a way to start again.
So can we get it right this time? Possibly.
Another chance in sight, take things easily.
Is there time to care again?
Time to hope and share again?
Is it all too late, too late to try it out again?
The starlight in the sky and the moonlight,
The firelight in your eyes, and the candlelight,
Every creature softly bless,
Touching each with tenderness.
Helping us to see, to see a better way ahead.
The snow upon the downs wraps things silently.
Nothing mortal shows, let’s step carefully
Make new tracks together, walk hand in hand,
And never run and hide.
The paths that we must tread
Lie side by side.”
Do you remember that lament I wrote last year for the never-ending season of summer I was in? This year, the Harvest time has finally come! And in the Autumn time too!
As a matter of fact, this whole year I have been able to experience the seasons in harmony with what was going on in my life! We started a relationship in the snows of winter—the last Winter Ball of the year. As the snow melted and the spring came, it actually felt like a time of new beginnings, the start of a brand-new life—the promise of love actually held out to *me*!
This summer has still been hot and humid, naturally, but I didn’t mind. Our relationship was deepening, we were learning to trust each other. And now as Summer gives way to Autumn, my heart is full of joy. This year I am not left out of the festivities, nor am I floundering in the bywaters or stuck somewhere watching others enjoying where they are, and also looking eagerly forward to the next thing.
For the first time in my life I’m looking forward to the future. Do you have any idea how strange that is for me? All my life I’ve had trouble seeing ahead; afraid to look because either I didn’t know what I wanted or because I did, but couldn’t do anything to go towards it.
I’m not stuck anymore! My life finally has a direction that I’m fully joyful about! Some unmarried women have that and struggle to incorporate marriage into the direction of their lives, but for me, I longed first and foremost to be a wife and mother. Whatever interest or pursuit I attempted to take up, I always knew I’d drop it instantly for the chance to have the simple, difficult, hidden life of a homemaker. Hard to commit to a career if your passion simply isn’t there.
Now I think I understand some of those verses in the Psalms that say things like, “Make me glad for the days You have afflicted me,” or “Let the bones that You have broken rejoice.”
Or, “You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; You have loosed my sackcloth and girded me with gladness, that my soul may sing praise to You and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to You forever.”
Or perhaps, yet a new meaning to the long-loved verse, “Weeping may endure for the night, but joy comes in the morning.”
“Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.”
It is right, it is fitting to rejoice at such a time. Suffering and hard times will come again, until all sorrows are healed. But when I look at what the Lord has done, it is right to thank Him—it is right to celebrate His goodness, His abundance, His provision.
There’s one thing I’ve learned that I didn’t exactly expect. Humans were made to be happy.
I used to have sorrow as my default emotion and state of mind. Not merely because I “didn’t have a boyfriend,” but because I longed to be fruitful, to have a home of my own, to be joined to a faithful man and raising children to love what is right. All the things that I wanted my life to be had, as the first step, a godly man who loved me: the very thing being withheld from me and which I could not seek out.
I used to think that maybe humans didn’t like being happy, really. Or that being happy only meant you were shallow or foolish. But now I am certain that we were made for happiness. Oh, I knew it theologically: we are created “to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” Just not here or now, not yet.
This sounds like I am only happy when I have the blessing, but that’s not true. I sensed His presence, and His approval all last winter before this began. When I sought the Lord and drew near to Him—not for gifts, but for help, He met me there. He showed me that I was not barren if I was obeying and trusting Him. But see, after the gift has been given, the veil has been lifted a little; I can see that in all those years where I felt cast aside, He was working. I can *see* now what I was struggling to believe by faith! My faith has been confirmed, He was working, and He had in mind my good the whole time. He loves to be generous, and I can see that now, where before I was fighting to believe it.
As strange as happiness feels for me, I know that He intends my good. Even if He hadn’t chosen to bring us together, I would’ve found it out in glory. And someday all tears will be wiped away, and I will know fully just how much He loves me. Gifts should be celebrated. They are a taste of His grace, just an appetizer to whet my appetite for His bounty and love!
—Cadenza
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