Why the rush?

We were 10, 14 and 15 years old, my sister, brother and I. Young, foolish.

Hurting.

I don't remember much when we were this age. Trauma has a way of doing that to people, I think; making them forget not only the bad, but unfortunately the good too.

The unthinkable had happened to us at this seemingly carefree age. It felt like we were in a dream. A horrible, awful dream. What happened to us, you might ask?

Well, perhaps it wasn't necessarily something that had happened to us, rather, news we received which would then result in a kind of happening:

Mom and Dad were separating. For good.

I don't recall if we even had a chance to say goodbye. Did he just leave? I was in the abyss that is grief and shock. The lonely, other-world, the already indescribable arena of an adolescent, just on the brink of understanding real emotion. And then this happens? What do I feel? Can I feel?

It was during these early days (months?) that a family-friend picked my sister, brother and I up from school.

We went to the grocery store that afternoon: Save-on-Foods in Vedder Crossing. This was a familiar place for us as it was our resident grocery store as children, so we were happy to see it from the car window again. We thought it would be a quick trip. You know, a basket-kind-of-shop. Surely she just needed to pick up a few items before she dropped us off for the evening.

We thought wrong.

Instead of waiting in the car, she asked us to come in with her. And instead of grabbing a basket, she chose a cart. We didn't mind. Maybe she would speed-shop for her family. Maybe she wanted help, I thought.

We moseyed over to the produce section, and she casually mentioned that she wanted to purchase us some groceries. We were stunned and so grateful for her generosity. It had, anyway, (this, I remember) been mentioned a few times that we would be living sparingly.

"Go ahead, pick whatever you'd like", she said.

Sort of hesitant about her generosity, we cautiously chose fresh strawberries. After that, salad items and a treat maybe.

We proceeded to the next isle where, surely, I reasoned, she would begin picking out groceries for her own family. Already weighing the cart down was a generous spread of goods we would be taking home.

No.

"Go ahead, pick whatever you'd like", she said. 

What? We paused in disbelief and concern. What about your family, I asked?

"Really, pick whatever you'd like", she urged.

Before we knew it, we had gone through the entire grocery store, concluding with an over-flowing shopping cart before us. I was happy and nervous. I was grateful. So, so grateful. I stared at the register- I wanted to see the end total. Our friend made me look away, but it was too late. I saw the total, it was a number I was not used to seeing.

We packed all of the food up in plastic bags, and she drove us home.

There, before our eerily still home on the other side of town, she told us to quickly unload the groceries before our Mom got home.

It was in that moment when I realized this grocery expedition wasn't a self-glorifying mission to seek affirmation or snag any dirty details of the recent split. This wasn't about her, I discerned.

No, this was purely in and of itself a gift.

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I've heard it time and time again, the opinions of my marrying at age 21 and my fiance's at 20:

You're both so young! Why the rush? 

Believe me when I say that if I were looking from the outside-in, I would have the same words come out of my mouth, **have had the same words come out of my mouth**.

We're young. Very. Young.

Babies even, as our mothers still think (They're Allowed).

There's so much that we've got to sort out in these young years of 20 and 21, especially in these last six months before we hear the bells.

I knew it would be taxing, you know, planning possibly the largest party of your life, but I had no idea it would make me feel the way I do.

How do I feel?

Constant emailing, calling, writing things down. Multiple trips back and forth to the seamstress, and numerous revisions of the budget. Endless phone calls to my incredibly patient fiance who assures me nearly every time I come to him with a conflict of interest, that his only wishes are 1) I have what I want (and need) and 2) I'm the one he's marrying. So lovely, he is.

The answer is everything. I'm feeling everything.

And maybe all of this wouldn't be so demanding if I weren't picking up my life and moving across the country right after our union, still, I've noticed this is an exponentially larger load than most 21 year-olds may choose to take on.

Rest assured, we're in the know of how ludicrous all of this may seem. It sort of is, especially if you think about it too carefully.

So, it certainly begs the question when adding all of the factors up:

Why the rush?

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I remember my mom, speechless, upon hearing (and witnessing) the news. Her joy was something I was very sensitive to. She tried very hard to have it in those days, and so when she did, I did too.

That evening I walked through our kitchen just to stare at the food. Above our fridge where we store larger nonperishable items looked quite full.

I liked that.

The food mirrored a small face of hope that Summer day, one that I've never forgotten. 

One that I longed to meet again.

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You could say I'm waist deep in busy and to-do's. I've even prescribed myself to a sufficient dose of weekly "balance shots", which are really just reminders to strive for balance and consistency. To remember to prosper where I am planted, and continue offering myself grace as the stubborn perfectionist that I am.

And also grief. I'm waist deep in that, too. It's not every day you gear up to move across the continent, leaving everyone and everything you know behind. North Carolina isn't far, but it's also not near. Not near to British Columbia anyway.

So it's these days of stay-up-until-3am-grief that I'm thinking about life and its hardships.You know, the kind that are forceful from the moment of release, that cause us to stumble and bruise. To ache.

The ones that leave us on the ground for longer than expected, where we reach out with a stretched arm; the limb un-damaged from impact.

But instead of pulling us up, where we're expected to brush off the grime and face the heat, He meets us in the dirt. Down in the place where we boil in shame and guilt and pain. He waits with us there.

As said in _Wild in the Hollow_ by Amber Haines, "He gets real low".

Even with-- besides-- the dirt residue on your face, 

He holds us.

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I can't deny His goodness to me. Which is why I remember so vividly the summer day in Save-on years ago,

and also why I am marrying Will in these early years of 21.

Because while these days in preparation for marriage are very painful, while these passed two years of Long Distance Dating have felt like a blow to the throat, and while I experienced-- what it felt like at the time-- a kind of death at age 14, I'm learning that God's intentions are always good.

He is always good.

Of anyone, He understands what the dirt tastes like. Yes, the scars on his hands and feet tell us that He knows what it is to ache. And still, His scars are not entirely a reflection of pain and suffering, of loss or fatality, but the exact opposite: life, goodness, grace, gifts. His scars tell us that He is a loving Father. That gifting is what He does, no strings attached.

It might just be a matter of Him leading you into the grocery store to realize this, where He'll ask you point-blank:

"Go ahead, pick whatever you'd like!"

To which you will choose fresh strawberries, because you know those will be nice.

And then He'll send you home with strawberries and an armful of groceries. Because He just does this.

And you'll realize while you stare at the items on top of the fridge,

that He is the face of Hope. 

"You're both so young! Why the rush?"

Because just like the gorgeous spread of groceries on a summer afternoon, Will (my now husband) is purely in and of itself,

a gift.