Imperfect Prose Link-Up: When You’re So Happy It Scares You

“The glory of God is a human being fully alive; and to be alive consists in beholding God.” ~St. Iraneaus

They eat peas by the handful, shelling them and tossing the green pods, the evening sun on their bathed heads and Kasher’s pajamas are already dirty from the soil and they stood out here in the garden this morning too, picking raspberries, the juice turning their fingers purple.

I’ll take them for a bike ride now, around the block, because I’m not ready to put them to bed. I’m not ready to go inside, the cool of the evening smelling slightly of autumn and freshly sharpened pencils and the leaves already starting to fall here in Alberta.

We park the bike and go inside and Trent’s on the phone and he smells of sawdust from chopping wood all day. He’ll be back to work soon, too, a math teacher, and I’ll miss him when he’s gone. The boys eat yogurt and crackers and then they ask for music. It’s 8 pm and I turn on worship songs and they’re running around the coffee table, the one Trent made me from his Pappa’s fence boards, and they’re flapping their arms and twirling. I’m singing as I clean windows and Trent’s off the phone now and he starts to dance. Kasher’s slapping his knee with his two-year-old hand and the sun’s peaking through freshly cleaned glass.

And even though I’m singing, I’m scared. Because this moment, this day, has been some kind of beautiful. The kind that makes you ache, like the pit of a ripened fruit and you’re so afraid something bad is going to happen because you love so deeply and intensely. 

Because you have lost before. And there have been bad days before, like the other, when you remembered her, the baby you lost in June and no amount of anything could fill the hole. But even she seems to be dancing with you today.

And I lift my hands there in that holy living room and I close my eyes, my boys still dancing and begging for one more song before bed.

Then it’s brushing teeth and potty, and after I’ve sung Skinamarinkydinkydink a few times and tucked in more times and finally, they are quiet, I walk up the stairs and Trent is standing there. Wanting me.

And we want each other on the old bed in the office, the sun setting and afterwards I just kind of cling to Trent. Lie there, hearing his heartbeat and thinking of Malachi 3:10.

 ¹⁰ Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.

We try our hardest to live with our arms and doors wide open, and we try to give extravagantly, and on days like today, I feel the Lord is delighting in us. I feel like Jehovah is throwing open the floodgates of heaven and pouring out so much blessing there is no room in my heart to store it. There is no room. I’m undone and overflowing and I wish I had a bottle to save this feeling in, for those sad days, for those hard days when you get a phone call or you hear an ambulance or you don’t get the email you were hoping for.

But all I can do is raise my arms now, and be fully alive in this hour. 

(How about you, friends? Have you ever had one of these breathtaking, holy days? Or has it been a string of sad? Tell me about it in the comments! I’ve love to hear from you… I’m so sorry I’ve been unable to visit all of you lately as I’ve been editing a few projects, but know that I care about you and am praying for you. Love, e.)