I was watching my niece a few days ago. She was throwing a fit in the restaurant we went to for her birthday. She wanted tomatoes with her meal. Her meal didn't come with tomatoes. Daddy told her they did, but Daddy was wrong. So we offered her some from our plates, trying to appease her. It didn't work. So Daddy took her to the car so she could throw her fit without disturbing everyone else at the table. It got me thinking.
I imagine that life is much like that meal. We expect one thing; we get another. I am a thirty-four year old Mormon woman. I went to Brigham Young University. I was told by everyone, including my atheist high school chemistry teacher, that I would not make it past my freshman year before I was engaged. But I did...clearly. I graduated single. I expected one thing. I got something else, something entirely different. And that was more than ten years ago. It is still entirely different than what I expected.
And I cannot deny that I've thrown a few fits about it. Such fits have ranged from childish - screaming and crying to God that life isn't fair; to angry petulance - ignoring and/or denying God's love, comfort, and in my more extreme moments, His entire existence; to flat out begging and bargaining - please, please, pretty please give me what I want! I promise, I'll be good. It should come as no surprise that said tactics were all to no avail.
What if my niece had been at peace with the plate of food she was given? She would have enjoyed a delicious meal. (The food at this restaurant was really, really good.) What if she had smiled graciously and accepted the offered tomatoes? She would have had both, that is both a delicious meal and her tomatoes. And she would have had more. Peace...a good time...loving company.
Just the day before said fit in said restaurant, I was in church. I was thinking about the way children deal with sorrow and disappointment when things do not go as planned or they don't get what they wanted. Not to pick on my sweet nieces and nephews because I love them all dearly, but I have witnessed more than one such fit recently, and this really has me thinking. So there I was, in church, thinking about how much happier they would be if they could only accept a situation for what it is and move on. And I knew then that I am the same. This is my life right now, whatever it may be. I am thirty-four and single. I am lonely at times. Lonely and afraid beyond description. Beyond pain, beyond hope.
But...that is not all my life is. It is good, so very good. It is delicious! It is a long walk over an Italian coastline, a picnic of pesto, bread and fresh mozzarella, and a perfectly blue blue ocean below. It is a cool summer evening in Black Hawk with my family and Peyton's dog, Cricket. It is a good, long laugh after singing Under the Sea in the too hot Las Vegas sun. It is a long, snowy drive to comfort a best friend in her time of need. It's my father's patience and love when I least expect it or the kind assurance that my mother will love me, even if I cannot see how I can possibly do it. It is the anticipation of something good to come. In fact, of lots of something goods to come.
I'm still going to be sad and afraid sometimes. Isn't everybody that way, sometimes? Maybe the goal is to try to remember that those times will pass, to find the center of the storm and wait it out in peace while the storm rages. Or to remember, really remember, that there is a being who wants me to have not just a life, but a life of fulfilled dreams, dreams that are more than I can comprehend in that single moment when I didn't get my tomatoes.
