“Thou pourest in joyfulness” {why I haven’t been blogging much lately}

“For Thy counsel is not in man’s power; but this everyone is sure of that worships Thee: that his life, if it be under trial, shall be crowned…because after a storm, Thou makest a calm, and after tears and weeping, Thou pourest in joyfulness.
Be Thy name, O God of Israel, blessed forever.”

-Prayer of Sarah, from the book of Tobit

I’ve been thinking about how to share this story here for a while now–even though I can hardly claim that blogging has been the first thing on my mind. I’ve gone back and forth because social media almost seemed too impersonal to entrust with something so wonderful–but finally came down on the side of thinking, you know, I’ve posted out there so much about waiting and praying and being lonely through this chapter of my life, I have no right to leave it unresolved. If I’ve commiserated with others who are waiting, I really ought to share God’s plan unfolding for me as a sign of hope.

So I’m here to share some joy and hope…in imitation of how my sister Mary shared her journey with the Dash so beautifully over on Benedic, Domine, Nos.

It’s hard to know quite where to start explaining all this…that hat, my smile, and all the rest. I guess I should start at the start.

So I’ve already told you about my trip to Wyoming this summer, and all the dreams that came true up there, all the ways it blessed me. Well, almost all the ways. Really I left out the most important one.

He stepped into my life that day I rode horses on that beautiful ranch. He even made it into one of my pictures before I knew it was him, driving a combine through a barley field. We almost didn’t meet. It just so happened that two of the best mistakes ever (i.e., me losing my cell phone while galloping a horse around and him breaking something on the combine) coincided and we ended up walking around that barley field at the same time. Even though I’d been encouraged to by my doting cousin (as well as her mother-in-law, with whom we were staying): “Hey, Max is pretty cute, you should get a ride with him in the combine!”, I’d never have had the nerve to climb into a tractor with a guy I didn’t know.

We met for about thirty seconds–I was on my way back to the house with my miraculously recovered cell phone and he was out surveying the damage to the combine. My cousin, who has priceless timing, mentioned to me right before we met that Max had always said the day a girl walked up to him in the middle of a field would be the day he thought about getting married. I’m pretty sure my sunburn hid the way I was blushing at that thought…but then again, strangely, I didn’t care too much how I looked. I had managed to forget my makeup at home when I packed for that trip. I was sweaty, sunburnt, windblown, and probably covered with bits of barley. I had just been on the verge of tears in despair after searching fields for my phone. I remember at that moment having the mindset, in so many words, of, This is too much like something in a story for it to be real–for him to be the one. Hopefully he’s a nice person and I’ll be nice and it won’t matter too much how I look.

That was about as much of him as I could see–tall and thin, hiding behind his hat and sunglasses. But his voice and countenance were still unmistakable. Thinking back, it’s kind of amazing to me, the sense of his person that I got in that half minute that we chatted about me losing my phone (he seemed to think it was pretty funny), and what had happened to the combine. That was pretty much all I had to go on, besides a few things my cousin told me about later (“he’s just a sweetheart”…”he’s from a family of fourteen…”), when, only six days after we met, back home in Alabama, I decided to write him a letter.

Yeah, you read that correctly.

I did have a lot of encouragement from my cousin and siblings. Maybe the pivotal conversation was one with my cousin, in which, on our way to the airport after that wonderful trip, I confided that if I could have a dream, it would be to marry a farmer or rancher (an idea that had been drifting around my imagination way before I got up there, I swear!) and live that lifestyle out there in the West.

I remember her slapping the steering wheel with a big smile. “Darn it, Lena, I could have set you up with Max! I should have got you out there sooner! And if you didn’t like him he’s got brothers!”

We laughed, but she did throw out there, “You know, if you wrote to him, he’d probably write you back.”

My first reaction was probably to laugh, a little wistfully. She’d been telling me over our visit about the way she and her husband got to know each other and fell in love through writing letters. I couldn’t deny the idea was sweet–like something in a story–but it still seemed far-fetched that I, who have never been the bold type, especially when it came to guys, would just write someone I met for thirty seconds. Hey! Remember me? I want to get to know you! Wanna be penpals? Ha!

But I suppose once in a while, Providence gets the better of what we would habitually do. And thanks be for that!

I couldn’t quite let the idea go…maybe because of my cousin and siblings, maybe because I had an increasing feeling that he seemed like just the type of guy I’d want to know. Maybe because I came to the realization that there wasn’t much chance I’d regret getting to know him–but I might always regret not taking the chance. Really, I think it was all of the above.

So…I got my cousin to hunt down his address for me, and wrote a letter, just a few days after I’d gotten home. I don’t remember everything I said, but it was something to the effect of, Hey, don’t know if you remember me, but I was at the ranch with my cousin and I really loved Wyoming…I’d like to stay connected with you guys I met there…learn more about your lifestyle because I’m thinking up this book idea about a farmer (which was true!), You don’t have to write back if you don’t want to, just thought it might be nice to be friends. Maybe next visit I can get a ride in the combine. I know it was longer than that. I’ll probably laugh if he lets me read it again one of these days, because I’m sure it was a hilarious mix of obvious and shy.

He, just as unassuming if not more, says he wasn’t quite sure at first if I was just after information for a book project or really wanted to get to know him. But neither of our doubts lasted too long once our letters back and forth got going. With each little bit of him I got to know better, I was more confirmed in the feeling that he was what I’d been hoping for. I hoped (and continually got the sense) that the same was happening to him. It was really special and old-fashioned and just right, starting with those letters. I got to know his voice and thoughts through his handwriting, in envelopes that were postmarked Casper, Wyoming. But I admit it got harder and harder waiting on those letters that took four days to travel one way. I finally gave him my phone number…yes, first.

It does seem that I’m getting good at doing things I’ve been quick to say I’d never do…from writing the first letter to being in a long-distance relationship, from very seriously considering a future far from Alabama to dating a non-Catholic. Maybe God thinks it’s good for my ego. And I’ll be the last one to complain. Each one of these things I thought it would make me secure to never even consider, He has taught me to let go and filled me with peace, direction, and joy in embracing a plan that was quite different from what I thought I wanted.

In my narrow-mindedness I never got so far as thinking, What if God gave me a person worth all the pains and difficulties of a long-distance relationship, someone I could face fifteen hundred miles down with? What if he could make someone wonderfully honest and easy to communicate with, who was able to prioritize visiting and talking and really getting to know me in spite of the distance?

Or, What if God wanted to use me to help my guy, and use him to help me, to know God better? What if I need to be part of that journey? What if he gave me someone who could, with incredible willingness, understand and accept that I would need him to become Catholic if we were to get married, but that he couldn’t do it just for me–and who would study it with me, pray with me, give it his best go, even go to Mass on his own every Sunday? What if it was a guy brave enough to accept that insecurity in our relationship with me–to realize that there’s a mountain there we have to trust God to move. What if he was someone I had no doubt was totally worth waiting ten years for, if it took that long?

Thanks be that God didn’t need me to know what I needed before He gave it to me. The journey of getting to know this wonderful man over nearly five months has been a great exercise in trust, patience, honesty, and the most rewarding and amazing adventure I’ve ever been on. I won’t bore you with all the details of how, after letters, we started video chatting (and texting all the time)…or of the first time he came to visit, and the second time…of all the songs, conversations, laughter, all the little things that have filled a lonely place inside us both…the goodbye tears at the airport that have assured me beyond doubt of the way I care for him…of the happiness and love I’ve begun to know, unlike any I’ve known before.

Let it suffice to say that God was listening to every single sigh and prayer of mine when I was lonely…and when Max was lonely…and, in spite of the most unlikely circumstances, He now “pourest in joyfulness”.

Please pray for us both as we journey along this road…the unbeaten path of discerning God’s will for us in purity, patience, and perseverance. Neither of us know how it will end, but I couldn’t ask for anyone better to be traversing it with! He keeps me smiling…and dressed in farmer style with hats and Carhart hoodies and coats…and from feeling alone even when he’s more than a thousand miles away. Talking to him, even just through a computer screen, is the highlight of every day. He’s everything I could ask for and so much more. He constantly reminds me of how amazing His creator is.

And so, all this is to say…God is never asleep at the wheel. Nothing is “too good to be true” when it comes to His plan for you. He doesn’t just have a better plan…He takes your dreams and incorporates them into something so good you just have to stare and smile and shake your head, lost for words. Even if your guardian angels have to work really hard breaking stuff and snatching phones out of pockets…His plan happens, right when, in the back of your mind, you feel like waiting might be the whole plan.

So don’t stop praying really hard, or dreaming, or entrusting your future to God’s loving hands! Because, well…it works!