Today I am feeling optimistic. Today I hope to see a light. And yet — even as I write these hopeful words, my heart begins to twist in my chest. Because the truth I keep circling back to is this: right now, being married to you, moving our lives forward together, has become my idol. And I don’t know how to make it stop being one.
I want to honor God. He is the most important — I believe that, I want to live it. But you’ve told me that in wanting marriage so badly, I’m coveting. And maybe there’s something in that I need to hear, even if it stings. The line between holy longing and grasping is thinner than I’d like to admit. Even Paul wrote that he had “learned in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content” (Philippians 4:11) — and learned is the word that catches me. Contentment wasn’t automatic for him either. It was a thing worked out over time, in the waiting. So maybe I’m still in the learning.
But Lord, the waiting aches.
Last March you said you’d thought about proposing before we visited my family for Easter — because you knew how much it would mean to me to tell them. And now it’s June of the next year, and what you told me instead is that you think about it every time we go camping. That you thought about doing it at Myrtle Beach. I can feel my heart physically ache as I write this. So many almosts. So many windows where I held my breath and nothing came.
I’m trying to hold two things at once: the hope, and the hurt. To want this without letting the wanting become the thing I worship. “Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life” (Proverbs 13:12). That verse has never felt more true. My heart is a little sick right now. I’m waiting for the tree of life.
And still — I don’t want to lose sight of how full my life already is. Because it is full.
Work has been just the right amount lately — enough to feel good about what’s coming in, not so much that I’m drowning. It’s summer, and I’ve been outside constantly, and when I’m not, I’m at my table desk with the door thrown open to the world. The food has been abundant, healthy, delicious. The weather has been delightful. Every other relationship in my life is growing stronger. By almost every measure, life is good.
So maybe that’s the invitation. To let the goodness already in my hands be enough to steady me while I wait for the thing that isn’t yet. “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above” (James 1:17) — and I’ve been given so many. The chickens. The climbing. The open door. The people who are drawing closer. To grip the one missing thing so tightly that I can’t feel the dozens I already hold — that’s the idol. Not the wanting itself. The grip.
I want to want marriage the way I want it to be: as a gift to receive with open hands, not a throne I’ve built and demanded God fill. I’m not there yet. But today I’m optimistic. Today I hope to see a light.
And today, that’s enough.
