As Christians, we are called to mourn with those who mourn, and rejoice with those who rejoice.  But often times, it feels like the mourning part actually comes more easily; the whole rejoicing thing often strikes a very sensitive spot in our hearts, surfacing the ugly things that we don’t like to admit we struggle with, like jealousy, and bitterness, and loneliness, and disappointment.

I will be honest: these can be my ugly truths.  Not my ALWAYS truths, but my occasional old faithfuls.  They are comforting like bourbon, burning on the way down – but hot damn, it feels good.

I have been a bridesmaid more times than I can count.  In a few weeks, I will aisle-walk for the 4th time in just 9 months – not to mention the many, many times over the past 8 years.

And here is the very honest truth: sometimes, behind the hair and the smile and the makeup and the $80 shoes, it can sting.  Even in the midst of believing wholeheartedly in the couple, and seeing her girlfriend so deliriously happy it’s infectious, and wanting nothing less than the entire world for her friends, even the most confident and unhurried woman can question if it will ever happen for her.

By the way – and I’m pretty confident that every woman reading this could back me up – this is not “desperation.”  This is “design.”  So shush – I don’t want to hear it.

Yesterday, I stood in Seattle beside one of my very best friends, Miranda, as she married the man of her dreams, Will.  Their story is so outlandish, so romantic, so heart-stopping, it’s preposterous.  It’s the kind of story that has the potential to kill the hope in a single girl’s heart, because whoa – that is so not fair.

But standing as witness to their vows, I saw truth, and beauty, and intensity, and love.  I heard them make promises to each other that will not be easy to keep – but voiced my agreement that I will do everything in my power to encourage and uphold them.  And I found myself so moved by the event, by their pledges, by the small group of people who literally circled them in support and love, that hardened shell around my very sensitive heart cracked, and out flowed pure joy.

If the ability to simply rejoice isn’t a miracle, I don’t know what is.

Miranda and Will’s story reminds me to believe that impossible stuff can happen, that some things are worth holding out for, and most of all, that God is faithful.  It’s a story so important that it prompts me to write about it here, no matter how vulnerable it feels to admit “It’s hard to watch my friends get married” or “I struggle with hope.”

So what if I do.  So what if YOU do.

God’s faithfulness doesn’t change.

And the story that is being told through Miranda and Will, and me, and you, is better than any romantic comedy.

Congratulations, my sweet friends.  I am elated with you, and was so honored to be a part of your day.  I love you both!

On Friday night, I attended a memorial service of a dear friend in Seattle.  While there in the church pew, celebrating the life of and grieving the loss of this amazing woman, another friend took my hand and placed it on her pregnant belly to feel the baby kick.

One friend is giddy about a new love interest in her world.  Another is dreading the inevitable breakup she will soon have to initiate.

And after a gorgeous spring day – the kind that confirms that Seattle is the most beautiful city on the planet, and nudges my spirit saying, “Remember what it’s like to smile?” and in which I got sunburned cheeks from being outside at Green Lake and along the waterfront of Shilshole – I spent the evening with, and felt the incomprehensible sadness of, my sweet friend who is living in the ruins of having lost a child.

Death and life, the end and the beginning, profound joy and severe pain; contrasting events juxtaposed in the most poignant way.  It made me feel so small.

And I was re-reminded: the only way to find life is to live in the present.  To be emotionally gutsy enough to feel whatever we need to feel, come what may.  To attempt to live in gratitude, no matter the disappointments or frustrations or non-ideal circumstances.  To find the gift in the “right now” – because life, ready or not, is going to hold a vast spectrum of events, emotions, stages, chapters, seasons.

We have to be present.  We have to.  Because in this life, longing is inescapable – but to be available right now is to be open to hope right now.

I struggle with discontentment on a regular basis. Oh mercy, I fight it at every turn. I am convinced – convinced – that if I could do or get “juuuust” one more thing, then I would be happy.

Throughout the years, my “one more thing” has taken different forms. When I was little, I wanted a Popple. And then a Skip-It. And maybe a Teddy Ruxpin.* As I grew older, that desire turned into a kitten, and then a boom-box, and then a car, and then to move away from my hometown. Once I was established in Seattle, it became a cell phone, and then a boyfriend, and then to turn 21, and then an iPod, and then a job, and then that dress at Anthropologie, and then to lose 5 pounds, and then a Macbook, and then a plane ticket, and then a couch, and then freedom, and then a purpose… all the while, searching simply for contentment.

I want things. I want them my way. And I want them now.

I know in my head that more things and more achievements and more experiences will not make me happy – there will always be something next, something greater, something bigger and better. My head knows this. My heart, though, is harder to convince.

Now that I’m here in Nashville, stripped of a lot of the comforts that I had come to rely on in my former city, I am confronting my discontentment every single day. I don’t have the same level of security and resources and time-tested friendships that I had in Seattle. I find myself making suppositions – that I just need to find a fulfilling job, or be really popular, or write some awesome songs, or be skinnier, or do something extravagantly impressive, or maybe just buy that little shelf at T.J. Maxx for my bathroom – and then my time here will have some purpose.

But I’m convinced that there is a difference between happiness and joy. Happiness is an easy quick-fix, a circumstantial band-aid that covers up the real festering issue. Joy is authentic. Joy cannot be shaken by the everyday emotional rollercoaster. As I am tossed about by the winds and the waves, joy holds like an anchor.

And joy only comes from one place. And so these days, I am praying for joy.

*Let it be known that as a child, I never got a Popple, or a Skip-It, OR a Teddy Ruxpin. Maybe this is the root of my panic-driven, constant, grasping need for more and more?