animal crackers

I was reminded tonight while watching an old favorite movie, Armageddon, of when I used to wish so badly to fall in love....so badly that it hurt. As "cheesy" as it may sound, I remember watching the love story scenes in that movie (you know, the ones where they play "I Don't Want To Miss A Thing" by Aerosmith) and longing to fall in love the way Liv Tyler and Ben Affleck do. I wanted to love and be loved so much that it would feel impossible to live without the other person. I wanted to be silly and giddy in love so that even playing with animal crackers (a classic Armageddon scene) felt like the most romantic thing ever.

As I reminisced about this old feeling I used to have -- the "longing to fall in love" feeling -- it suddenly dawned on me how lucky I am to have married a man that fulfilled my nagging wish. How lucky am I to be in love, to be in love in a way that sometimes feels just like the movies make love appear? Now, I won't deny that marriage has it's tough moments and that love comes with it's own sacrifices, but I will say that a love that makes you feel giddy inside, a love that makes you feel full of life, a love that makes you smile, a love that makes you so happy you cry....is possible.

The fact that I have been given this awesome blessing of love has also reminded me of how God provides. There were so many years of thinking that a love like I've described would never come my way and there were nights of crying myself to sleep wondering if God had any idea what He was doing! I would think, "Does He know how much I want to fall in love?! -- Why isn't it happening?!"

But He did know. And it did happen. Not on my own timing, but in His. And this thought is especially profound to me right now, because I have recently found myself with new questions wondering, "Does God know I need a job? Does He know Justin and I need an income? Will He EVER provide?"

The choice is this: trust God(even when it's not on my timing) or try to control it all on my own (aka: give all my energy to worrying about all the unknown things in my life).

I'll probably wake up tomorrow and ask God the same questions all over again, feeling antsy about getting a job, but in this moment, I am trusting in a God that provides.

"Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart." Psalm 37:4