BE HAPPY; IT'S THE LOVING THING

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter… ©

Jane was bright and beautiful and talented and, for a long time after I met her, single. I consider her a friend, but her father is one of my best friends, and so I worried about her on her own behalf, but especially for her father.

The problem was that of many bright and beautiful and talented women: she had waited too long. With each passing year, the numbers of single men who were both available and acceptable dwindled. She was the church-going type, not the bar-hopping type. Had she gone to bars, she would have found plenty of available men, but no acceptable ones. All the men she met in church, or almost all, were acceptable, but not available.

Until Fred. Actually she had met Fred when he was not available. He lived in another town but they went to some of the same church functions. Fred’s wife died. Some years later, he and Jane ran into each other again at a church weekend. They clicked. After a while they married.

I had lunch with her and Fred and her parents a couple of years later. “I’m so glad I waited,” she said. That made me happy, for Jane, and for her parents. There is nothing that makes parents as happy as knowing that their children and grandchildren are happy. Our own greatest happiness comes from seeing those we love be happy.

So if you love someone, be happy. It will make them happy. That’s the loving thing to do.

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula [The UP], where life is defined by winter even in the summer! [This phrase is explained in the post for March 20, 2014.]

I tweet as yooper1721.