The best part of any relationship...

Remarriage from widowhood.

What a confusing decision!

What a sometimes all-consuming process.

What an important, life-altering choice!

Do I risk loving again?

Do I accept being alone and, like Paul,

learn to be content in my circumstances?

 

Just like grief, though similarities exist,

each journey is different in the decision to date and remarry.

Each person makes the decision that is,

in their experience and with their knowledge,

best for them.

 

Once the decision is made,

the resulting journey may again have similarities,

but each journey is, once again, different!

The emotions are different!

The experiences are different!

The personalities are different!

If you are in that process,

my heart reaches out to you!

 

I have a fellow widow friend

who had a wonderful marriage,

fun, happy, and loving.

In some ways, her journey through grief and dating

is similar to mine.

She kissed a few frogs,

a couple of them poisonous.

After more than a decade,

she has decided that 

she is happy to remain single

unless God drops Prince Charming into her lap

and writes on the wall that "this is the one!" with His finger.

It is the right choice for her.

 

I have other friends who,

for reasons unknown to me because they are fabulous women and men,

want to find their chapter two mate and can't even find a date.

They do the right things,

but no nibbles.

They wonder if they aren't young enough 

    or pretty/handsome enough

        or thin/buff enough

            or smart enough 

                or...whatever enough.

That's not it!

They are all those things and infinitely more.

They wonder if God has forgotten them,

why He gives a mate -

or if not a mate, contentment as a single -

to others and not to them.

There is no answer to those questions outside of God

who usually keeps them to Himself.

Still others desire to remarry,

meet the man or woman

that God intends for them quickly

while some spend long years seeking before they find God's intended.

Some have happy, easy chapter two marriages

while others find remarriage filled with difficulty.

Most who remarry seem to fall in between.

 

I myself find myself in the first category of marriages.

My marriage is delightful, love-filled, and easy. 

Though I walked a bumpy path getting there,

once I stopped trying to do things at my speed and in my way,

God moved quickly and amazingly.

I love my life!

Why am I so blessed while others,

likely much more deserving than I,

are still so lonely?

Honestly, I find myself having to be careful.

I am so happy and content that 

I want everyone I know to have the same experience.

I plot "fix-ups".

I internally object when someone decides to stay single.

I pray for my widowed friends to find great love.

I have to be careful.

God's plan for my life

is not necessarily the plan for theirs

outside of His desire for them to lean on Him,

    trust Him,

        walk in obedient submission to Him.

I found this to be true when my friend posted the following meme.

I didn't "like" it and I didn't comment on it

because I didn't like it

and anything I could have said about it wouldn't have been helpful.

Because my experience has been different from hers.

And I can't understand the depth of her pain.

My frogs mostly didn't give me warts -

at least none that Compound W didn't remove -

hers did.

Now, several months later,

though it still makes me very sad for her

and for those who agreed with her,

I am glad that, for once,

I didn't challenge her post.

My sadness for her may be legit -

but it could very well be misplaced in God's plan for her life!

 

For me, the best part of my Lanny Love's and my relationship

is NOW!

Every single day, we love one another more,

cherish one another more deeply,

are more grateful to God for giving us one another.

For me, tomorrow will only be more of the same joy

until God calls one or both of us Home.

My perspective is vastly different from hers!

 

I know other widows who had frog paths

and who, like me, found Mr. Right and are happy and content.

But that is not everyone's experience.

It isn't my friend's.

 

Honestly?

I pray she gets my outcome someday!

I pray that someone absolutely, stunningly wonderful

comes along and sweeps her off her feet!

God has made her so amazing

it seems a shame to not give her to someone!

But that is not my decision to make

either in the pursuing or the answering.

 

Meanwhile, I praise God for my Lanny Love,

for our marriage!

I am so glad I waited for the man described below,

a meme also posted by my friend.

 

I know!!!

I am very blessed to have been gifted so well!

And I am infinitely grateful!!!

 

 

 

 

The coffee smelled like Al this morning...

No, Al did not smell like coffee,

nonetheless, the coffee this morning 

smelled like my Al.

 

He was a coffee connoisseur

and a coffee snob.

He loved Colombian coffee

and in particular MJB brand.

It was the only coffee in our home.

 

My Lanny Love and I also love coffee,

especially Colombian.

Though we are not exclusive to it

and we primarily use whole beans,

I still love MJB which, unfortunately, is not available in whole beans.

This morning I opened a new can

and it immediately took me back to that long ago kitchen.

It smelled like Al.

 

I have missed him heavily lately.

It has become normal,

missing him more as I remember the last effort to save that autumn -

despite being told it would not save, only possibly extend and

hopefully provide comfort, still, I clung to hope... -

and the closer we come to the holidays...

and then the month of his death. 

 

This morning, the smell of a fresh can of MJB was overwhelming.....

 

Place me like a seal over your heart, 

like a seal on your arm. 

For love is as strong as death, 

its jealousy as enduring as the grave. 

Love flashes like fire, the brightest kind of flame.

                ~~ Song of Songs 8:6-7