The beauty of waiting.

Last weekend, someone I love deeply became engaged to the man of her dreams. I got to be there when it happened; watch him kneel and worry over whether or not the ring would fit, hold her after she grinned and said, “Yes, of course!”

Yes, of course.

This was a moment she had waited for, five long years of longing and waiting and trusting God. Five years of not knowing but loving anyways. Isn’t that what love should be, loving whether or not you get love back? Loving even if you don’t know if you will ever get love back? Love is easy when you are loved back. When you don’t get anything back, it’s significantly harder.

Besides the fact that she just had committed to marry this young man, there was something so beautiful about that moment- that waiting being over.

I’d watched her for five years, love this man, get nothing back. But she loved him anyways, faithfully and unconditionally and selflessly- and then all of a sudden she was rewarded for this long wait, with that man kneeling on a Ferris wheel two hundred and sixteen feet in the air at the State Fair of Texas holding a ring.

Love always makes the wait worth it.

The girl who waited and the man who realized are planning their wedding for March of 2013.  Lizzy, I am so happy for you. God bless you and Daniel, and your future together. Keep loving the people in your life fearlessly. I love you more. {Really.}

"Saudade", a Portuguese word with no immediate English translation, describing a deep emotional state of nostalgic longing for an absent something or someone that one loves. (Wikipedia)

My eyes have been shut so tight
my fists so viciously clenched
I’ve given up in this treacherous fight
my thirsty soul unquenched.

Why do I desire joy,
make an effort to find it
look around every corner as if
joy is hidden behind it?

My eyes are closed,
my search in vain.
I want to feel;
if only pain.

What happens when the scales fall,
and this blind beggar sees?
What happens when my eyes are opened;
all my fears appeased?

I see Your face,
marvel at grace
see that joy was all around
my soul was hardened; tightly bound.

Why was I blind, why was it I supposed
that joy is shy and hiding, concealed and undisclosed
when joy is tangible, graspable, attainable
everywhere cast and implausibly sustainable?

If I would look, if I would see
how joy would consume and encircle me
If I would give thanks, kneel at Your feet
my heart would pump joy in and out with each beat

There is fullness of joy at Your feet, in Your presence
for You are everywhere, Lord- omnipresent
joy is not hiding, and neither are You
this water I seek and this love I pursue

I’m drowning in grace, I’m breathing it in
I am free from the laws of death and of sin.
I am breathing it in, with every breath
I am freed from the law of sin and of death.

Thank you, Father. 

“As long as thanks is possible, then joy is always possible.”

-Ann Voskamp

I am a hysterical mess of feeling,
a whirlwind of sorrow and ache.
My head and heart are reeling,
consumed by pain and heartbreak.

There isn’t Morphine for the bleeding soul
or Ether for the tired mind
There aren’t bandages for this heart-hole
to heal and fix and bind

Indestructible hope, you are keeping me alive.
I know this and I feed you, try to make you thrive
but you are slow to grow; slower still to bloom
still I grasp you, hold on tight-you keep me from my tomb.

Irresistible grace, you are saving me continually
as I struggle, stumble, fail, despair- habitually
When I’m remembering pain and torture reliving

it is grace that makes me kneel in thanksgiving.